Recent observations of bacterial populations in the laboratory and in natural environments have exacerbated long-standing puzzles about evolution: Can evolution in a fixed environment continue forever? Why is there so much diversity on all scales, including coexistence of many within-species variants? A key role of theory in biology is to ask what is truly puzzling and what can already arise in simple models and thus should perhaps not be so puzzling. Some progress on these questions by statistical physics approaches will be the focus of this talk.

The lecture will review some of the seminal contributions of James Clerk Maxwell, William John Macquorn Rankine and George Biddell Airy to the theory of structures and how those theories can be applied to modern structural engineering design. William F. Baker is a consulting structural engineering partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP where he has led the structural engineering practice for more than 20 years. Bill is best known for the development of the “buttressed core” structural system for the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest manmade structure. In addition to his work on supertall buildings, Bill’s expertise also extends to long-span roof structures and specialty structures. He has also collaborated with numerous artists, including Jamie Carpenter, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, James Turrell, and Jaume Plensa. Bill is an Honorary Professor at the University of Cambridge; he has received honorary doctorates from the University of Stuttgart, Heriot-Watt University, the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Missouri; the Gold Medal from the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Lifetime Award for Design; the Gustav Magnel Gold Medal from the University of Ghent; the Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; and the Fritz Leonhardt Preis (Germany). He is a Fellow of both the ASCE and the IStructE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA) and an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (United Kingdom). Bill is currently collaborating with faculty members from MIT, Cambridge, ETH/Zurich, and EPFL/Lausanne on a book intended to make Maxwell’s structural engineering work accessible to the modern engineer.