Condensed concepts

A helpful starting point for me when considering universities after the pandemic is the cover story of The Economist , from two weeks ago,  The 90% Economy.  They were reflecting on the world economy will change in the coming years, suggesting three key characteristics.  1. the economy will be more fragile   2. there will be less innovation   3. there will be even greater inequality  The reason that it is called the 90% economy is because in the next few years rather than growing a few percent each year it will decrease in size by about 10%.  Now on one level that doesn't sound too bad, but the problem is that it is not a uniform decrease across every sector, company, and individual. The changes will be quite heterogeneous. Rather, there will be significant gaps, that because of the interconnectedness of everything there will be problems.  Just like the economy going back to ``normal'' universities will continue to have students, continue to do teaching, continue t

I have now finished my first draft of chapter 6 , of  Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction.  The main purpose of the chapter is to introduce the idea of the critical point and the renormalisation group.  I welcome comments and suggestions. However, bear in mind that my target audience is not the typical reader of this blog, but rather your non-physicist friends and family. I think it still needs a lot of work, particularly to be less technical. The goal is for the chapter to be interesting, accessible, and bring out the excitement and importance of condensed matter physics. Aside. Don't think that because I am posting two chapters one week apart that I am writing one per week. I wish I could. I sometimes move onto a new chapter before getting it into a draft form good enough to post.

There is a growing discussion of what changes might result from the pandemic: changes in societies, in institutions, and to us as individuals. What will happen to universities? Will they change for the better or for the worse? First, I want to acknowledge that there's a lot of heterogeneity, due to the diversity of institutions and their different  contexts. The effect of the pandemic on Harvard, on the University of Queensland, and on a small state university in Sri Lanka, could be vastly different. Any change produces both challenges and opportunities. There are many immediate questions: which universities will survive financially? How many staff will be sacked?   To what extent will universities move to online learning, or to some hybrid? A few years from now will we be back to largely face-to-face teaching? Although important, we should also ask be asking bigger questions. An epidemic provides a mirror on society: its values, its strengths, and its weaknesses.

I have now finished my  first draft of chapter 5,  of  Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction.  The main purpose of the chapter is to introduce the idea of spatial dimensionality.  I welcome comments and suggestions. However, bear in mind that my target audience is not the typical reader of this blog, but rather your non-physicist friends and family. I think it still needs a lot of work, particularly to be less technical. I still have not figured out how to explain how fluctuations are larger in lower dimensions. The goal is for it to be interesting, accessible, and bring out the excitement and importance of condensed matter physics.

Tonight I will be giving my first seminar via zoom. Here are the  slides . It is for the  Pandemic Seminar of the UQ School of Mathematics and Physics.  Here is the recording.

Next Monday I am giving a seminar, ``The mathematics and physics of virions", for the virtual Pandemic Seminar of the UQ School of Mathematics and Physics. Most of the talks so far have been about modeling the spread of the virus and the effect of social distancing measures. In contrast, I will look at phenomena at a much smaller scale. The past month I have taken a crash course in what is known about the structure and properties of virions (single virus nanoparticles). There is some fascinating and beautiful mathematics and condensed matter physics involved. A nice place to start is this short animation video that shows how the Dengue fever virus replicates itself. Three important questions for any virus are the following. 1. What is the structure of the virion? In particular, what is the structure of the viral capsid, i.e. the protein shells that encapsulate the genome of the virus? 2. How does the capsid self assemble? 3. How is the genetic material packaged inside