Again, it's my great pleasure to talk
about this Nobel Prize, which goes to
three brilliant physicists. In fact,
this year is kind of a strange because they had
two different citations: one goes for the
genetic discovery of topological phase
transition, and the other one goes for
technological discovery of a phase of
matter. So, that's why
strangely they get half of that to David
Thouless, and the other half to two people.
I guess the reason is even though the
Nobel Prize Committee does not explain,
is because Thouless was in both of these
two researches. Allow me to give you a
couple of minutes of background on this
three beautiful minds. Uh, David Thouless, 82
years old, is an Emit Professor in
Washington University, has been the
recipient of several other awards
including the Wolf Prize goes every year
to an outstanding living scientist or
artist. Next is Duncan Halden. From a
very young age, I guess, this is the first
paper was in mid-20, that he published
and it was well received.
It's in Princeton University. And last
but not least, a Scottish brilliant
scientist who works in the same area, and
he is also collaborating at these three
scientists have been working for last
three decades. This year, Nobel Prize was
a very unexpected for the discovery to
have done which actually paved the road
for future discovery of matters with
exotic properties. Now, I need to
take couple of minutes and give a little bit
of terminology, listen, on a few
definitions. One is topology. So, topology
is a branch of mathematics in which you
associate characteristics of matters and
geometries to integer values. This is
called change stepwise. For example,
electrical conductance is as an analog
and you can change it as you want in any
decimal, this is not a topological
behavior. But if I, for example, show you a
cinnamon bun,
a donut, a German sesame bread, and
a pretzel, so of course you might say, well, you know,
I kind of feel hungry, and uh
some of them is salty, sweet different recipes.
These are the different characteristics
of these
four objects, but if you show these four
to a topologies, don't think she would say
that these have only one topological
invariant, and that is a number of the
holes. So one has none, one has one, zero, two and three.
And of course, we don't have one and a
half, or two and three quarter of a whole
and that is a very simple description of
a topological behaviours. Next thing is
super conductors. So superconductors are
matters that in a normal temperatures
are very normal,
they don't show any electromagnetic
properties, but then you bring a
temperature lower, and when I say low, I
don't mean outside eight degree, I mean
minus hundred 85-degree. So they become
completely different to get out of the
closet and become super conductor. And
this is the fundamental of, for example and
mag laughs train, supersonic train that
we have. And last but not least, I would
like to talk about something called
super fluids. So superfluids, unlike the
one that we know like a water, has zero
viscosity. And that means if you stare
them, they keep staring indefinitely. So
very strange, for example, liquid helium
at zero kelvin, it is one of these fluids.
And last but not least, allow me to give
you a very simple chemistry lesson. So we only
have three phases: we have solid, gas, and
liquid mixed in. A phase diagram, different
temperature and pressure can add them,
and can change them. You have a fourth
state which is called plasma, by the way.
So plasma is the stage as a gas but very
different than normal gas. You bring the
temperature very high, and you knock out
electrons and create an elec- ionic soup.
So, usually these are very
very conductive, but also have a fifth stage.
The 5th stage is where we really are
interested.
So this is called actually rolls and
stein quantum condensate. So it's
happening at almost zero kelvin, which
is minus 273.3. You might say what is wrong with
you, you scientist. You're always working at
such a low-temperature. Well, let me tell you
something. I'm not the quantum physicist,
I do of my areas material science, but as
much as I know, a lot of quantum mechanics are very
hidden. So you know Dr. Greene said that, you
know, when you don't look is there, when
you look is not there. So it is always
mysterious. The only temperature at which
you can see these law unveil itself and
show its face is at zero, which is
zero energy and zero entropy. That's there's lots
of focus on actually try to understand
matter at this temperature. So what
happened was in 1981, a brilliant
professor his name was Klaus von Klitzing.
A brilliant physicist because
Nobel Prize in 1985. He did a mysterious
experiment. He creates 18 single layer of
electrons, at a very low temperature on
under a enormous amount of magnetic field,
and what he realized that, that this
electrical conductance is not a
linear. It goes 0, 1, 2, 3 and he try and try and
try every single time was back on robust.
To give him Nobel Prize for that, but they
didn't know why.
Now what, they did know why but they didn't
know why this is behaving that way. I give you
a little bit matter for scientists
sometimes to find something to go in
dark room and the touch something as a
while there's a flat surface, another one
here, you can guess. But unless someone
comes and political explain it, do
mathematical modeling and verify the
mathematical modelling, it's no value or
at least if you have not turned the
light on to see what is going on, and
this first Nobel Prize goes to these two
brilliant scientist who actually
approached topological behavior of these
and connected, wrote everything, and it
was bang on, it was perfectly matches
after three decades. So that's why the
the first citation was. The second one,
and I quickly go over that, is again
related to another experiment. So if you
have a two-dimensional liquid, so
that what is two-dimensional, it means
one atomic layer of liquid. So
mathematically was proven that it's
impossible this to participate in a
phase transition.
Here, if you have water, and you freeze it
become ice in a long-range this has a
crystallographic structure. But when you
have one atoms, how does it work?
Mathematically was impossible, but often
what something we call it impossible is
because we have not discover everything
or you have not consider all the
possibilities, and that was the other
Thouless and the other professor
realize. Maybe it's something that they
did not consider and that was
considering vortices. They realize that yes
it is possible mathematically to prove
it.
So, in a sense, in a very low
temperature zero, this single atom two-dimensional
liquid has internal vortices, one clockwise
was one counterclockwise.
That's what I think about the kind of
small ship, it goes straight. It doesn't
go left or right,
the phase is stable. But as soon as you
increase the temperature slightly that
these two become disconnected, and that's
why the phase transformation happens if
very different phase transformation, but
that is what exactly is. So in truly
beautiful work I mean, I am in no
position to tell that, but it it's
completely revolutionize the world is
very excited about what they can
accomplish with that. One of the main
application could be in what we called
quantum computing. Uh, so I guess I end it
here, eight and a half minutes.
That was eight
years of experiment in eight minutes.
Thank you.