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I (ie Alex Lang) am a physics PhD currently doing my postdoctorate research at the Salk Institute in San Diego. I work 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” $N$ when $N \gg 1$). In many ways large systems are simpler than small systems, so taking the extremely large system size limit ($N \to \infty$) often brings useful insights into a problem. So the blog name is inspired from statistical physics, my broad interests, and of course, Buzz Lightyear.