Evolution – patrick 林香麟

Stochastic Tunnel

If you have two states that require an large amounts of energy/distance to travel between them, it is not likely that state one will become state two. However, if there is enough random fluctuation, state two will eventually be sampled, and if it is a stable minimum, this can lead to conversion from state oneContinue reading “Stochastic Tunnel”

Spandrel

An architectural feature common in Renaissance architecture used to support a dome or arch. Often they are decorated, but this decoration is secondary to their structural role. The term also has an interesting usage in evolutionary biology. In 1979, Stephen Jay Gould conceptualised evolutionary “spandrels”, making the analogy that a trait present in an organism mayContinue reading “Spandrel”