Sir Anthony Leggett on science, superfluidity, and serendipity
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- Опубліковано 10 тра 2024
- Sir Anthony Leggett, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for his foundational contributions to superfluidity, is a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Reflecting on a lifetime in science, he shares his groundbreaking work on superconductivity, superfluidity, and quantum science with Lauren and Colin, illuminating his ideas with simple metaphors of a military parade and children running in a forest.
He also discusses the human connections that have shaped his life, from doing science demonstrations for families at a farmer’s market to his experiences in England, the US, Canada, Ghana, and more.
Listen to the audio version of the podcast here: conversationsattheperimeter.p...
Conversations at the Perimeter is co-hosted by Perimeter Teaching Faculty member Lauren Hayward and journalist-turned-science communicator Colin Hunter. In each episode, they chat with a guest scientist about their research, the challenges they encounter, and the drive that keeps them searching for answers.
The podcast is produced by the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, a not-for-profit, charitable organization supported by a unique public-private model, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada. Perimeter Institute acknowledges that it is situated on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Neutral peoples. Perimeter’s educational outreach initiatives, including Conversations at the Perimeter, are made possible in part by the support of donors like you. Be part of the equation: perimeterinstitute.ca/donate
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Amazing interview!
I spend most of my interest in high energy topics, but theres so much to be drawn from at the low end. How the electrons move in step with one another, following the leader, is interesting. Perhaps an understanding of this sort of 'intelligence' can breakthrough on the advancement of meta materials,
But for now, it seems we are left simply with a choice, between observing paths taken or observing interfence patterns. This must be frustrating for serious mechanics of the quantum. Its interesting to note the difficulty in reconciling quantum mechanics well into the 20th century.
I agree with and find pleasing to hear that perhaps the next step is 'direct human perception' and then that something will go wrong!😄 Yes, precisley!
Perhaps, such is the nature of the future of advanced meta materials. Materials which defy the current limitations of human perception. A sort of choiceless awareness must be cultivated.
🤷♂
Its cool to know how Dr. Leggetts efforts and open mind creates for an international community effort. I believe physicts mindset can break through international divides. More so even than most diplomats and politicians have demonstrated. a commitment and enjoyment in understanding the fundamental laws of nature.
Great advice about following ones own curisoity, including if one believes that others, dont quite understand it either. The peer pressure of not asking such questions is not easy to shake. But luckily, with advancements in communication tech that brought us this here, more patent clerks can touch a little on complex topics. Results ranging from just one's own satisfaction in expression to real breakthroughs that would not have been discovered otherwise.
Super interesting.
💜
Nice talk. Thank you for sharing. I wonder what he would think about superfluidity boojum and perfect fluidity ( ALICE CERN ). Or black holes as a BEC state. Or what type of test would he like to do on the edge of quantum and classical? Keep up the good work.
This seems fun
the problem i have with that account, is that there is no notion of checking whether the superposition is real, only the statistics and specific results of looking or looking at the end of the experiment are every doable, and there we always have definite outcomes. what you should ask yourself in the double slit experiment is what you mean by the electron being in a superposition of going left or right, when it is really about a bunch of different trajectories intersecting the left or intersecting the right side, if you believe there is such a thing as a particle traveling at all. it makes no sense to think of the two options as singular in any sort of way if you are talking about collections of trajectories that go through one or the other, what you have is a source of electrons and a rate of detection at the end in some pattern, the superposition is just some artifact of description, some of the electrons are stopped by the screen with the slits naturally, so the two sets of trajectories are just post selections of all the electrons leaving the detector, the electrons that hit the screen with the slits in it are equally important, they also interfere through the slits but end up missing both of them, nobody talks about those. there is this whole space of physical theories that reproduce the results, looking always looks different from not looking for all of them, but at the end of the day you don't have control over how many electrons are shot at once or what is traveling along with them, you have to analyse the sources more rigorously as well than you would think, and basically nobody talks about the sources in any great detail at all. i think the superposition have no direct physical content at all, i think the proper description is some other physical system where the electron is like a particle but in that particular situation you end up with a guiding wave, that can be quite complicated, but is coherent enough to produce the fringes on top of the smooth curve. i would still call the a quantum phenomena because it is produced as a consequence of quantum theory, but i think we moved forward way to fast based on hasty ideas with quantum theory and we have been lost in it for a while now, with ever more confused narratives that have very little to do with the math we are doing and very little to do with the ontology that could be there. the calculation of an electron double slit does not involve tracing two cases of trajectories as all, it involves a matrix theory calculation or wave function calculation essentially like a propagating pretty simple wave for a simple electron that interferes with itself and produces a probability distribution on the observable associated with the measuring devices in the experiment, and if we "look" we have some other source or some other measurement setup such that we simply have more detectors or more sources, making up a completely different experiment. i don't see any of the stories told about superposition in any of the mathematics, i see only narratives about classical intuitions told over and over adjoined to mathematics that says something else. if you go much simpler and talk about only the wave function of a source of coherent light, then i see only a wave propagating and a bunch of measurement devices that goes off randomly because of some intensity at the detector, i really don't see any reason to talk about superposition of particles at all, anywhere in the theory it just confuses the whole thing, either look for a clear theory you can think of clearly, or go full instrumentalist and reject all the intuitions about particles or waves. just talk about the functions on detectors and as a result of sources or something, all this quantum talk is really just silly.
Our beautiful will say, remember even old minds can be as these little ones. To remind comes with comfort. Students will say where else increase belongs with delight? Now remember a little Child "i" can't exist without my "AM"! YES Even creation itself nor what ever...
For a moment I thought this was Professor F J Lewis 😅
i don't think Schrodinger believed that quantum mechanics was the whole story, i don't think he or Einstein ever believed that.
and looking or not looking in the context of the double slit is simply a different experiment, with new physical effects, there is nothing deep about that I don't think.
superposition are not the essential feature. decoherence is nonsense. other than in the sense that decoherence works like the decoherence of light waves in classical mechanics. the physical effects in a theory where only one thing ever goes on at once and everything is deterministic is that the effects on the distributions of outcomes and the correlations between certain things whether macroscopic of microscopic are what they are as predicted by quantum mechanics. that for the whole experiment the criteria are always the sets of outcomes across the whole experiment not just individual outcomes independently. that has nothing to do with whether the physical process is deterministic and contains no essential superposition or somehow involves physical superposition in the description. the criteria are always sets of outcomes, always, with no exceptions. it is the correlations in those outcomes that reflect a behavior associated with decoherence in quantum mechanics or the associated classical theories, or alternatively coherence in quantum mechanics and the associated classical theories. the classes are never ever separated by a classical quantum divide, it is a set A set B divide for correlations of outcomes. because a set of a outcomes are always definite there cannot be a rigorous divide between classical and quantum theories, along those lines, only quantum theories and classical theories that say A, and the same two classes that say B. this is something someone should have shoved in the face of Bohr and Heisenberg right away in a way that was more convincing than they could deny, because it is true, and it is so true that there will never be a proof of the contrary, because it is provable that no experiment can completely sever the classes for any sets of experimental outcomes.
What science calls serendipity Christians call God's providence