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Events on Wednesday, July 27th, 2022

Physics ∩ ML Seminar
Minerva: Solving Quantitative Reasoning Problems with Language Models
Time: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm
Place: Online Seminar: Please sign up for our mailing list at www.physicsmeetsml.org for zoom link
Speaker: Guy Gur-Ari, Google Brain
Abstract: Quantitative reasoning tasks which can involve mathematics, science, and programming are often challenging for machine learning models in general and for language models in particular. We show that transformer-based language models obtain significantly better performance on math and science questions when trained in an unsupervised way on a large, math-focused dataset. Performance can be further improved using prompting and sampling techniques including chain-of-thought and majority voting. Minerva, a model that combines these techniques, achieves SOTA on several math and science benchmarks. I will describe the model, its capabilities and limitations.
Host: Gary Shiu
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Physics Summer Fun
Weekly Recess
Time: 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: Bascom Hill or 5310 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: Sharon Kahn
Abstract: We hope you’ll take a 20-30 minute break on (some/all) Wednesdays this summer (12:30-1pm) to come play together! For nice days, we’ve arranged to borrow some lawn games from the L&S dean’s office and will likely bring along a frisbee and/or a hackeysack, too. Meet us on Bascom Hill (between Birge/South Hall).
In case of rain, we’ll meet indoors (5310 CH) for board games. Feel free to come play or just hang out!
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Thesis Defense
Breeding and bounding intersecting branes
Time: 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Place: 5280 CH
Speaker: Gregory Loges
Abstract: Intersecting branes provide a natural framework for constructing four-dimensional theories with semi-realistic particle physics. The phenomenological properties of vacua built in this way vary dramatically, and it is an interesting task to understand both what is possible and what is typical. I will discuss intersecting brane constructions for type IIA string theory on a toroidal orbifold from two perspectives. On one hand, genetic algorithms, which take inspiration from biology, provide a method to optimize desirable properties by "breeding" a population of branes. Generation by generation, random samples are produced and the underlying structure learned. On the other, an exact number of indistinguishable vacua can be found by leveraging the recursive way in which branes are combined. Sharp predictions for moduli, gauge group, etc. can be obtained at the cost of losing detailed information about any one vacuum.
Host: Gary Shiu
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Thesis Defense
Breeding and bounding intersecting branes
Time: 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Place: Chamberlin Hall 5280 (also
Speaker: Gregory Loges, Physics PhD Graduate Student
Abstract: Intersecting branes provide a natural framework for constructing four-dimensional theories with semi-realistic particle physics. The phenomenological properties of vacua built in this way vary dramatically, and it is an interesting task to understand both what is possible and what is typical. I will discuss intersecting brane constructions for type IIA string theory on a toroidal orbifold from two perspectives. On one hand, genetic algorithms, which take inspiration from nature, provide a method to optimize desirable properties by "breeding" a population of branes. Generation by generation, random samples are produced and the underlying structure learned. On the other, an exact number of indistinguishable vacua can be found by leveraging the recursive way in which branes are combined. Sharp predictions for moduli, gauge group, etc. can be obtained at the cost of losing detailed information about any one vacuum.
Host: Gary Shiu
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