Fredagskollokvium: Spin glass physics and computation

The theory of spin glasses started about 50 years ago to describe the curious magnetic properties of certain metallic alloys. Since then, the field has expanded to include problems that arise in studying very different systems, from biology to financial markets. In this talk, I will describe how methods from spin glass physics have been used, particularly in the past couple of decades, to study  information processing and computation. I will focus on a number of problems, namely, Boolean satisfiability problems, memory in neuronal networks and more modern applications in statistical inference/high-throuput data analysis and try to describe what these apparently different problems and systems have in common with each other and with the original models studied in spin glasses.