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Last Monday was an exciting day! After following the BICEP2 announcement via Twitter, I had to board a transcontinental flight, so I had 5 uninterrupted hours to think about what it all meant. Without Internet access or references, and having not thought seriously about inflation for decades, I wanted to reconstruct a few scraps of [...]
Sooner or later, most scientists are asked to deliver a public lecture about their research specialties. When successful, lecturing about science to the lay public can give one a feeling of deep satisfaction. But preparing the lecture is a lot of work! Caltech sponsors the Earnest C. Watson lecture series (named after the same Earnest [...]
In 1946, Edward M. Purcell proposed that the way an atom emits radiation is not the sole property of the atom itself, but rather can be strongly modified by the electromagnetic environment the atom is placed within. Purcell’s particular interest was in how the intrinsic magnetic moment (spin) of atomic nuclei in solids and liquids [...]
Faculty, Topological Quantum Physics
Walter Burke Editor's Note: Yesterday and today, Caltech is celebrating the inauguration of the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics. John Preskill made the following remarks at a dinner last night honoring the board of the Sherman Fairchild Foundation. This is an exciting night for me and all of us at Caltech. Tonight [...]
Arthur Wightman Arthur Wightman passed away this past January, at age 90. He was one of the great mathematical physicists of the past century. Two of Arthur’s most renowned students, Arthur Jaffe and Barry Simon, wrote an affectionate obituary. I thought I would add some reminiscences of my own — [...]
As a mathematician, I often wonder if life would have been easier were I born 2,400 years ago. Back then, all you had to do to become eternally famous was to show that $latex 3^2+4^2=5^2$ ( I am looking at you Πυθαγόρα!) OK, maybe I am not giving the Ancients enough credit. I mean, they [...]
Quantum correlations are monogamous. Bob can be highly entangled with Alice or with Carrie, but not both. Back in the early 1990s, I was very interested in the quantum physics of black holes and devoted much of my research effort to thinking about how black holes process quantum information. That [...]
Last week was the final week of classes, and I brought my ph12b class, aka baby-quantum, to conclusion. Just like the last time I taught the class, I concluded with what should make the students honor the quantum gods – the EPR paradox and Bell’s inequality. Even before these common conundrums of quantum mechanics, the [...]
Columbia University, IQIM Scholar Alumna