Scientists and engineers who work with materials – metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, and glasses – know that at some scale, predictive ability breaks down amid the fluctuations known as “stochasticity.” On the atomic scale for example, even the most perfect crystal has thermodynamic fluctuations, in the form of “point defects” – atoms missing from the crystal lattice. In another example, the atoms within an alloy material may distribute in many ways: an alloy made of silicon germanium, may be half and half of each element overall, but with stochastic fluctuations the ratio in which those elements are found varies at different length scales throughout the material.