Conférence de l'École de Physique des Houches

"Extreme randomness and rare events in science and life" by Hugo Touchette (Department of Mathematical Sciences -University of Stellenbosch, South Africa)

There are many events in everyday life that are the result of chance - events that appear only very rarely, but whose appearance has important, even dramatic consequences, such as periods of extreme heat or rain, mountain avalanches or financial crashes. These events also appear in several fields of science, including biology and physics, and have often useful consequences, which we can predict and analyze with the help of the mathematical theory of large deviations, the theme of the July summer school. In this presentation aimed at the general public, Hugo Touchette will give an overview of this theory, based on probability, with simple examples from everyday life and science.