This is an old teaching blog I started as a post-doc but am no longer actively updating. Hope you still find it useful.

I (ie Alex Lang) am a physics PhD working on cutting-edge applications of machine learning in industry. I have previously worked on a variety of research topics such as physics, computational neuroscience, machine learning and theoretical biophysics. As an outsider, that probably looks like a jumble of topics, but I swear, there is a theme! In my research, I apply techniques (both conceptual and mathematical) from statistical physics to a variety of problems. Statistical physics is the domain of physics that applies to large systems (number of “particles” when ). In many ways large systems are simpler than small systems, so taking the extremely large system size limit () often brings useful insights into a problem. So the blog name is inspired from statistical physics, my broad interests, and of course, Buzz Lightyear.