Neuroscience and mathematical frameworks for inference, perception and action. Begin with a small probabilistic model before tackling the formal free-energy principle.

Emmy Noether

Mathematical work on algebra and the relation between continuous symmetries and conservation laws. Begin with a precise statement and its assumptions.

Ada Lovelace

Notes on the Analytical Engine, symbolic operations and a worked procedure. Read her contribution alongside the translated text and Babbage’s machine design.

Claude Shannon

A mathematical account of communication under uncertainty. Separate the quantity of information in a model from the meaning or truth of a message.

Abdus Salam

Theoretical physics and electroweak unification. Read the formal framework alongside the predictions and the experiments that can constrain it.

Connect this subject

When does a pattern become an explanation?

Compare symmetry, information and models across mathematics, physics and living systems. Similar vocabulary does not establish identical mechanisms.