Time and again since the era of Newton, physics has come forth with new classes of dynamical laws ranging from Fourier’s mastery of the heat equation to Maxwell’s theory of the electromagnetic field to Turing’s ideas on pattern formation and many others.  However, there are a large class of dynamical processes in living organisms where the dynamical description is of a completely different kind. In particular, many biological processes are exploratory in nature, often largely independent of initial conditions, and driven by a functional purpose.  For example, before our cells divide, precisely 46 connections have to be made between the machinery that separates chromosomes and the chromosomes themselves.  Not 45, not 47. One connection for every one of our 23 pairs of chromosomes.   In this talk, I will describe the hypothesis of exploratory dynamics as biology’s unique and necessary solution to problems in purposeful dynamics.  After introducing the conceptual questions and corresponding phenomenological observations, I will describe both theoretical approaches to thinking about exploratory dynamics and experiments designed to reveal its many quantitative mysteries.

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Fund.