Predicting the unpredictable…

…sounds crazy, and may well turn out to be. But if it’s validated, then what?

Why does it take so long for soul mates to find each other” How does disease spread through a person’s body? When will the next computer virus attack your hard-drive?

A new theory published last month in Nature on the statistical concept of ‘First Passage Time,’ or FPT, may provide the key to answering at least a few of these questions, says theory co-author Prof. Joseph Klafter from Tel Aviv University’s School of Chemistry. And the answers may lead to breakthroughs in medicine, mathematics, the environment, and elsewhere.

Prof. Klafter and his colleagues from the University of Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris (where he has been visiting professor) are the first to have developed an analytical model that calculates the average arrival time — the mean FPT — of a randomly-moving object in a complex environment.

(via Science Blog)