Check out the preprint for much more: "Coarse-graining dynamics to maximize irreversibility"

And a massive shout out to the leaders of the project: Qiwei Yu (@qiweiyu.bsky.social‬) and Matt Leighton (@mleighton.bsky.social‬)

In neural dynamics in the hippocampus, the maximum irreversibility coarse-graining uncovers a large-scale loop of flux in neural space that is directly driven by the animal's movement in physical space.

In chemical oscillators, the maximum irreversibility coarse-graining picks out macroscopic loops of flux that dominate the dynamics.

Across a range of living systems, this maximum irreversibility coarse-graining uncovers key biological functions.

For example, in models of kinesin (a motor protein that ships cargo inside your cells), we can derive simplified dynamics without losing any irreversibility.

When living systems burn energy, they drive irreversible dynamics and produce entropy.

Under coarse-graining, the apparent irreversibility can only decrease.

This means that -- at every level of description -- there's a unique coarse-graining with maximum irreversibility.

Check out the preprint for much more: "Coarse-graining dynamics to maximize irreversibility"

And a massive shout out to the leaders of the project: Qiwei Yu (@qiweiyu.bsky.social) and Matt Leighton

arxiv.org/abs/2506.01909

In neural dynamics in the hippocampus, the maximum irreversibility coarse-graining uncovers a large-scale loop of flux in neural space that is directly driven by the animal's movement in physical space.

In chemical oscillators, the maximum irreversibility coarse-graining picks out macroscopic loops of flux that dominate the dynamics.

Across a range of living systems, this maximum irreversibility coarse-graining uncovers key biological functions.

For example, in models of kinesin (a motor protein that ships cargo inside your cells), we can derive simplified dynamics without losing any irreversibility.