David Thouless

Credit: blickpixel/pixabay

How Machine-Learning Helps Us Understand Strange Materials and Their Stranger Physics

Vasudevan Mukunth 06/06/2017

Condensed-matter physicists are increasingly relying on machine learning and...

The surface of a natural graphite crystal. The graphene derived from such crystals exhibit interesting and unique topological properties. Credit: University of Exeter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Scientists Shouldn’t Always Look for Utility in the Beauty of Shapes

Vasudevan Mukunth 20/10/2016

It’s not good to harp on applications in order...

A cup filled with superfluid helium. Because of quantum mechanical effects, the helium will crawl up the sides of the cup in a thin film and collect as a droplet on the outside, and drip below. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

How the Physics Laureates Used Geometry to Tame the Very Weird of the Very Small

Vasudevan Mukunth 04/10/2016

The physics Nobel laureates were able to use ideas...

David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, the winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics. Credit: nobelprize.org

Physics Nobel Goes to Three Scientists for Work on Exotic Forms of Matter

The Wire Staff 04/10/2016

The 2016 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded...