October 2015 Cover of Biology Open

A collage of the magnified Pheidole ant heads reveal the astonishing differences in their head shapes and depressions. Photos courtesy of Adam Lazarus

Having spent over 40 years as a professor in mathematics and theoretical physics, Hikami, head of the Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Unit, has come across a great deal of phenomena that numbers can explain.

Organized by Professor Shinobu Hikami, head of the Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Unit and Professor Jonathan Miller, head of the Physics and Biology Unit, the International Random Matrix Theory for Complex Systems Workshop, held in April 2012, was OIST’s first physics-focused workshop. Paul Wiegmann, University of Chicago physics professor and one of the workshop’s speakers, commented that it was more interdisciplinary than most RMT workshops, because it focused on biological and physical applications of the theory as well as its mathematical aspects.

Credit: Edward Stevens, Wikimedia Commons