You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A Mind Over Matter is a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist, Philip W. Anderson. Anderson is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential physicists of the second half of the twentieth century. Unlike the physicists who appear on television or write popular books, Anderson studied the physics of the very many, i.e., the science of how vast numbers of atoms conspire together to create everything from liquid water to sparkling diamonds, and from semiconductors (essential for cell phones and computers) to superconductors (essential for MRI machines). More than any other single person, Anderson transformed the patchwork field of solid-state physics into the intellectually coherent discipline now called condensed matter physics. He developed important concepts that transcended physics, and influenced the scientifically literate public through his essays and articles. Book jacket.
Blood is life, its complex composition is finely attuned to our vital needs and functions. Blood can also signify death, while 'bloody' is a curse. Arising from the 2021 Darwin College Lectures, this volume invites leading thinkers on the subject to explore the many meanings of blood across a diverse range of disciplines. Through the eyes of artist Marc Quinn, the paradoxical nature of blood plays with the notion of self. Through those of geneticist Walter Bodmer, it becomes a scientific reality: bloodlines and diaspora capture our notions of community. The transfer of blood between bodies, as Rose George relates, can save lives, or as we learn from Claire Roddie can cure cancer. Tim Pedley and Stuart Egginton explore the extraordinary complexity of blood as a critical biological fluid. Sarah Read examines the intimate connection between blood and womanhood, as Carol Senf does in her consideration of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
This thesis is a contribution at the intersection of a number of active fields in theoretical and experimental condensed matter, particularly those concerned with disordered systems, integrable models, lattice gauge theories, and non-equilibrium quantum dynamics. It contributes an important new facet to our understanding of relaxation in isolated quantum systems by conclusively demonstrating localization without disorder for the first time, answering a long-standing question in this field. This is achieved by introducing a family of models – intimately related to paradigmatic condensed matter models – and studying their non-equilibrium dynamics through a combination of exact analytical mappings and an array of numerical techniques. This thesis also makes contributions relevant to the theory of quantum chaotic behaviour by calculating novel, and often intractable, entanglement measures and out-of-time-ordered correlators. A concrete and feasible proposal is also made for the experimental realization and dynamical study of the family of models, based on currently available technologies.