The cluster of excellence STRUCTURES explores new concepts and methods for understanding how structure, collective phenomena, and complexity emerge from the fundamental laws of physics. These concepts are also central for finding structures in large datasets, and for realizing new forms of analogue computing. STRUCTURES addresses specific, highly topical questions about the formation, role, and detection of structure in a broad range of natural phenomena, from subatomic particles to cosmology, and from fundamental quantum physics to neuroscience.
Learn moreDiscover the STRUCTURES cluster, its research and people in the short film We Are STRUCTURES.
December 19, 2024
Understanding how structure, collective phenomena, and complex behaviour emerge at large is one of the most profound and important tasks of science. The STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence aims at a coherent understanding of the common principles, concepts and dynamical models underlying structure in nature, mathematics and data. Our main research questions are:
Why is so much of nature structured rather than diffuse?
What are deep new relations between mathematical & physical structure?
How can we efficiently and reliably identify structures in large datasets?
How can complex physical structures be used as a resource for computation?
The STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence brings together scientists from numerous different research fields and subfields. It establishes new axes of research between mathematics, physics and computer science, with the goal to create a culture of collaboration that transcends boundaries between traditional areas. This enables us to pursue research projects that could not be addressed by the individual groups in isolation. On the institutional level, STRUCTURES College is becoming the place where cross-disciplinary discourse takes place in research and teaching, and gets connected to other parts of the university, and to society.
The diagram shows the STRUCTURES logo that visualizes our connections via the seven comprehensive projects, which are joint interdisciplinary projects that connect researchers rooted in a variety of areas – displayed here as semi-transparent polygons. Each spike/vertex stands for a STRUCTURES PI. The representation in a circle not only emphasizes that in the CP, they all contribute jointly and on an equal footing, it also allows to show the different subject areas, affiliations, as well as other information, on further circles on the outside.
We combine leading expertise in scientific computation and large-scale simulation, data analysis and machine learning in the scientific context, geometry and topology, field theoretical methods, analysis of nonlinear partial differential equations, neuromorphic computation, and synthetic quantum systems. Compared to other research institutions and clusters in the world, it is the unique combination of this expertise that makes Heidelberg an ideal place for the research pursued in STRUCTURES – allowing to transform our understanding of structure and its emergence in the world.
Do you wish to learn more about the research topics of STRUCTURES?
The public outreach blog “What's That Structure?” of the STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence is dedicated to cultivate interest in research topics and foster interdisciplinary engagement through insightful articles and captivating visuals on topics related to our research in the cluster. Based on the motto “What's That Structure?”, each article is about a structure and aims to give an idea of what that structure is, how it comes about, and why it fascinates us. Each blog post is furthermore accompanied by small social media campaigns.
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