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The Eye of a Mathematical Physicist

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Abstract

In this essay we are searching for neural correlates of ‘doing mathematical physics’. We introduce a toy model of a mathematical physicist, a brain connected with the outside world only by vision and saccadic eye movements and interacting with a computer screen. First, we describe the neuroanatomy of the visuo-saccadic system and Listing’s law, which binds saccades and the optics of the eye. Then we explain space-time transformations in the superior colliculus, the performance of a canonical cortical circuit in the frontal eye field and finally the recurrent interaction of both areas, which leads to a coherent percept of space in spite of saccades. This sets the stage in the brain for doing mathematical physics, which is analyzed in simple examples.

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  1. Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETHZ, CH 8093, Zürich, Switzerland

    Klaus Hepp

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  1. Klaus Hepp
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Correspondence to Klaus Hepp.

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Dedicated to Jürg Fröhlich for his 60th anniversary.

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Hepp, K. The Eye of a Mathematical Physicist. J Stat Phys 134, 1033–1057 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10955-009-9719-z

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