Biological & Soft Matter Seminar: A Second Look at First-Passage Processes

Abstract:

This will be a very informal presentation of new insights that I gained and some surprises that I encountered in writing the second edition of my first-passage book.  I will discuss extending the Kolmogorov approach to compute any integer moment of the exit time from a finite interval, the surprising role of disorder on first passage from the interval, the Berg-Purcell model of chemoreception, the "worst" graph with the longest first-passage time, the transience of the Polya urn model, and "shapes" of first-passage paths.