- "Voodoo fusion" - an article from the APS Forum on Physics and Society that pretty much excoriates all of the fusion-related startup efforts, basically saying that they're about as legitimate as Theranos. Definitely an interesting read.
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.06389 - This is Kenneth Libbrecht's tour de force monograph on snow crystals. Talk about an example of emergence: From the modest water molecule comes, when many of them get together, the remarkable, intricate structure of snowflakes, with highly complex six-fold rotational symmetry.
- Somehow this tenure announcement just showed up in my newsfeed. It's very funny, and the titles and abstracts of his talks are in a similar vein. Perhaps I need to start writing up my physics talks this way.
- Beware of unintended consequences of ranking metrics.
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.05813 - insert snarky comment here about how this is a mathematical model for hiring/awards/funding/publication.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
More items of interest
This continues to be a very very busy time, but here are a few interesting things to read:
Monday, October 07, 2019
"Phase of matter" is a pretty amazing emergent concept
As we await the announcement of this year's physics Nobel tomorrow morning (last chance for predictions in the comments), a brief note:
I think it's worth taking a moment to appreciate just how amazing it is that matter has distinct thermodynamic phases or states.
We teach elementary school kids that there are solids, liquids, and gases, and those are easy to identify because they have manifestly different properties. Once we know more about microscopic details that are hard to see with unaided senses, we realize that there are many more macroscopic states - different structural arrangements of solids; liquid crystals; magnetic states; charge ordered states; etc.
When we take statistical physics, we learn descriptively what happens. When you get a large number of particles (say atoms for now) together, the macroscopic state that they take on in thermal equilibrium is the one that corresponds to the largest number of microscopic arrangements of the constituents under the given conditions. So, the air in my office is a gas because, at 298 K and 101 kPa, there are many many more microscopic arrangements of the molecules with that temperature and pressure that look like a gas than there are microscopic arrangements of the molecules that correspond to a puddle of N2/O2 mixture on the floor.
Still, there is something special going on. It's not obvious that there should have to be distinct phases at all, and such a small number of them. There is real universality about solids - their rigidity, resistance to shear, high packing density of atoms - independent of details. Likewise, liquids with their flow under shear, comparative incompressibility, and general lack of spatial structure. Yes, there are detailed differences, but any kid can recognize that water, oil, and lava all have some shared "liquidity". Why does matter end up in those configurations, and not end up being a homogeneous mush over huge ranges of pressure and temperature? This is called emergence, because while it's technically true that the standard model of particle physics undergirds all of this, it is not obvious in the slightest how to deduce the properties of snowflakes, raindrops, or water vapor from there. Like much of condensed matter physics, this stuff is remarkable (when you think about it), but so ubiquitous that it slides past everyone's notice pretty much of the time.
I think it's worth taking a moment to appreciate just how amazing it is that matter has distinct thermodynamic phases or states.
We teach elementary school kids that there are solids, liquids, and gases, and those are easy to identify because they have manifestly different properties. Once we know more about microscopic details that are hard to see with unaided senses, we realize that there are many more macroscopic states - different structural arrangements of solids; liquid crystals; magnetic states; charge ordered states; etc.
When we take statistical physics, we learn descriptively what happens. When you get a large number of particles (say atoms for now) together, the macroscopic state that they take on in thermal equilibrium is the one that corresponds to the largest number of microscopic arrangements of the constituents under the given conditions. So, the air in my office is a gas because, at 298 K and 101 kPa, there are many many more microscopic arrangements of the molecules with that temperature and pressure that look like a gas than there are microscopic arrangements of the molecules that correspond to a puddle of N2/O2 mixture on the floor.
Still, there is something special going on. It's not obvious that there should have to be distinct phases at all, and such a small number of them. There is real universality about solids - their rigidity, resistance to shear, high packing density of atoms - independent of details. Likewise, liquids with their flow under shear, comparative incompressibility, and general lack of spatial structure. Yes, there are detailed differences, but any kid can recognize that water, oil, and lava all have some shared "liquidity". Why does matter end up in those configurations, and not end up being a homogeneous mush over huge ranges of pressure and temperature? This is called emergence, because while it's technically true that the standard model of particle physics undergirds all of this, it is not obvious in the slightest how to deduce the properties of snowflakes, raindrops, or water vapor from there. Like much of condensed matter physics, this stuff is remarkable (when you think about it), but so ubiquitous that it slides past everyone's notice pretty much of the time.
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