Saturday, May 21, 2011

Lecture on superfluids

Last week I gave half a lecture on the phase diagram of helium and superfluidity to a second year undergraduate class on Thermodynamics and Condensed Matter Physics. The lecture includes:
  • a discussion of the differences between the phase diagrams of 3He and 4He
  • a list of the 4 Nobel Prizes awarded for work in superfluidity [Landau, Kapitsa, Osheroff, Richardson, and Lee, Leggett] (I did not include BECs but should have]
  • a video of the superfluid transition
  • a discussion of an amazing experiment on the space shuttle which determined the critical exponent for the specific heat at the superfluid (lambda) transition to five significant figures.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Why is the state of universities such an emotional issue for me?

It all about values! Universities have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime. Australian universities are receiving increasing...