Frank Wilczek
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Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, N.J. There is much interest currently in the properties of two-dimensional electronic systems. A whole class of new states of matter (the fractional quantized Hall states) has been discovered to be possible for interacting electrons in a layer subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field, and several related but distinct possibilities for additional states have been suggested theoretically. A unified framework f

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Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, N.J. Recently there have been dramatic developments in the theory of knots. Methods of statistical mechanics and quantum field theory have been discovered to yield new, practical ways of distinguishing knots. The new invariants have been used to resolve a number of long-standing mathematical problems. They also have been used in amazing analyses of knotted DNA and 2+1 dimensional gravity, among other cases. V.

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Science Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, N.J. " The construction of a theory that simultaneously incorporates both Einstein's gravitational dynamics of space-time and quantum mechanics has been for some time a major goal of theoretical physics. Severe conceptual and practical problems must be faced, in any such construction. Recently, new insights have emerged from studying the problem in a smaller number of dimensions. Two significant pap

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Science Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ. " The scanning tunneling microscope is proving to be a remarkably useful and flexible tool for probing the structure of matter at atomic scales. Work using it appears regularly in “Articles Alert” columns. For the uninitiated, a recent article will be a good introduction. H.K. Wickramasinghe, “Scanned-probe microscopes,” Scientific American, 261,98-105, October 1989. (IB

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 1 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, N.J. " A long-sought goal in superstring theory has been to derive the theory by a method that keeps as much symmetry as possible manifest. An important bit of progress along those lines is reported. M.B. Green, C.M. Hull, “Covariant quantum mechanics of the superstring,” Physics Letters-B, 255, 57-65, 13 July 1989. (University of London, U.K.) " Data on the distribution of quasars a

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 1 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ. " The latest Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for pioneering work in experimental investigation of neutrino properties. The fascinating story of how these elusive particles have evolved from theorists’ fancy into experimental reality, and indeed have become some of our best tools in exploring the fundamental physics of the microcosm, has been told in the acceptance speeches of the prize

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Frank Wilczek | | 7 min read
PHYSICS >BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ. " A special issue of Progress of Theoretical Physics is devoted to a broad consideration of a classic and still fascinating problem. Research Institute for Fundamental Physics and The Physical Society of Japan, “Origin of the solar system,” Progress of Theoretical Physics (Supplement), 96, 1-3 19, 1988. (Kyoto University, Japan) " This year’s Henry Norris Russell Lecture rev

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 1 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ. " The late Soviet physicist Zeldovich was renowned for the breadth as well as the depth of his understanding. He brought an extraordinary range of insights to bear upon his central interest, which was the fonnation of structure in the universe. One of the last papers that he published is characteristic of him: It contains miniature courses on turbulence and on the hydrodynamics of self-gravitati

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Sciences Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ. " Although the standard model of particle physics largely crystallized in the mid-1970s and has been verified by numerous experiments, some of the conceptually clearest and most decisive experiments have been difficult to perform for various technical reasons. It is a pleasure to note that two such experiments have been done recently that mark milestones in our understanding of the microworld. O

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Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK School of Natural Science Institute for Advanced Studies Princeton, NJ " The Aharonov-Bohm effect describes the fact that the behavior of charged particles in quantum mechanics depends not only on the electric and magnetic fields, but also on the vector potentials. The effect controls fractional quantum statistics, dominates the interaction of matter with cosmic strings; and supplies new, essentially quantal observables for black holes. At a more down-to-earth level

Physics
Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK Institute for Theoretical Physics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, Calif. A deeply troubling problem for modern physics is why the vacuum doesn’t weigh very much. A recent paper reviews the reasons why this seemingly innocuous fact bothers people, and it presents as well some of the wild speculations this phenomenon has engendered. S. Weinberg; “The Cosmological Constant Problem,” Reviews of Modern Physics, 61 (1), 1, Januar

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Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS FRANK A. WILCZEK Institute for Theoretical Physics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, Calif. " A fundamental issue in high-energy physics, with important implications for cosmology, is the nature and origin of violations of microscopic time reversal symmetry. Until now, such violations have only been observed in accelerator experiments, and indeed only in a very special class of experiments involving neutral K mesons. However, there are ingenious ideas for new kin

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Frank Wilczek | | 2 min read
PHYSICS BY FRANK A. WILCZEK Institute for Theoretical Physics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, Calif. "Multigrid algorithms have traditionally been used in hydrodynamics, where it is often impbrtant to keep track of phenomena occurring on vastly different length scales. Roughly speaking, the idea is to have “average” variables defined on a coarse grid, and separate “local” variables on a fine grid. Lately there has been exciting progress in adaptin
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