The Fermi Problem

In this episode I talk to Bence Mélykúti, DPhil. Bence has an MSc degree (incl. undergrad studies) in mathematics from the Mathematical Institute of the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. He defended his doctoral thesis in January 2011 at the University of Oxford, UK, where he was with the Department of Statistics and the Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre as a member of Keble College. He worked under the supervision of Prof. Alison Etheridge (Dept. of Statistics) and Dr. Antonis Papachristodoulou (Control Group, Dept. of Engineering Science). His Research interests include: The interfaces of mathematical (esp. probabilistic) modelling, stochastic processes, statistics, machine learning, chemical reaction kinetics, systems biology, control theory, operations research. He seeks novel possibilities how these can be applied to develop quantitative methods for research in the life sciences. He is also interested in making a positive societal impact with his research, and is open to being contacted with interesting project ideas for consultation. Further Bio: He was based at the Centre for Biological Systems Analysis (ZBSA) and tangentially at the Department of Mathematical Stochastics, both at the University of Freiburg, Germany. His host there was Prof. Peter Pfaffelhuber. In Freiburg, he was most recently an AXA Research Fund postdoctoral fellow. He was visiting the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, UK, from January until June 2016. He came to Freiburg with a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara. He worked with Profs. Mustafa Khammash (Dept. of Mechanical Engineering) and João P. Hespanha (Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering). In this episode we talk about the German Tank Problem, the Mark and Recapture Problem and the Fermi problem. Bence recommnded the Quanta magazine.