Larry Abbott was a theoretical particle physicist at Brandeis University when he first met Eve Marder at an off-campus retreat to celebrate the induction of a new centre for neuroscience. It was the late 1980s and he was just starting to dip his toes into the statistical mechanics of neural networks. But he wasn't sure what to expect from Marder, who had already made a name for herself as an iconoclast in the field. Abbott talked about his mathematical models, and Marder told him he needed to see a 'real' neural network in person, so she invited him to visit her lab.
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