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Randomness and order

This series grew out of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) conference ‘Randomness and Order’, at which academics in the fields of quantum physics, music, probability and medieval history discussed what randomness meant in their different disciplines. You can see the recording of the conference here.

This is one of a series of themed discussions with Oxford academics from different disciplines. See the complete collection here. 
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Professor Ian Walmsley, FRS

'Physics tells us that randomness is, in a very deep way, inherent in the very structure of the universe.'

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Professor Chris Wickham, FBA, FLSW

'Historical data are random... the point I'm interested in is about what you might call the randomness of the historical archive.'

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Professor Jonathan Cross

'It's interesting to look at randomness through the lens of the arts... All art is an attempt to understand our place in a random world'

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Professor Alison Etheridge, FRS

Professor Etheridge discusses randomness as it applies to statistics: 'I'm interested in the way biological populations evolve, just because two individuals in the world choose to mate at random'.

Related websites
The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)
'Randomness and Order’ conference
Recording of the conference