Unpopular tastes

I’ve said before that I tend not to like things that are popular (e.g. movies, music, TV shows, topics of interest, etc.). I reflect a lot on the minor disadvantages associated with such unpopular tastes.

To give an example, the popularly preferred social network is Facebook. What if you happen to hate Facebook, and instead prefer Google+? Either you join a network that’s missing most of your friends, or you just put up with a network you dislike. Many people think this problem could be solved if either Facebook changes or people leave. While this might help, the problem could never be eliminated, since there will always be someone dissatisfied with the most popular social network.

When it comes to social networks, many people want one that has their friends on it. But what about books? Do you particularly care whether you can find friends who like the same books? If you really like Ulysses, does it matter to you that few other people understand?
[Read more…]

The Physics Nobel this year

A few days ago, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Haldane, Kosterlitz, and Thouless, ”for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”Hey, I recognize two of those names!  In my field of research, superconductivity, there’s something known as the Berezinskiĭ-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.  (Berezinskiĭ didn’t win the Nobel because he died in 1980.)

As always, the Nobel provides an article explaining the background for popular audiences.  I’m just going to talk about it briefly to give you the gist.

Berezinskiĭ, Kosterlitz, and Thouless (BKT) explained the superconducting transition in flat, 2-dimensional materials.  Below a certain temperature, the material becomes a superconductor, conducting electricity with precisely zero resistance.  Above that temperature, it behaves as a normal material.  What changes?

Superconductors have topological defects called vortices (singular form is “vortex”), which I depict below:

On the left, a grid of atoms where all arrows point outwards from a topological defect. On the right, the arrows point horizontally outwards and vertically inwards.

Here, each blue circle is an atomic site, and the arrow represents the “phase” of the superconductor.  The two squares above show the two kinds of vortices, the “+” vortex and “-” vortex.  These vortices behave as electrical charges, with like repelling like, and opposite charges attracting. [Read more…]

Origami: WXYZ Impostor

WXYZ IMpostor
WXYZ Impostor. The design is mine, but I include WXYZ units, designed by Tung Ken Lam.

Once a year, I run a little class to teach origami to kids. This year, one of the projects was to create the famous WXYZ model, which consists of four intersecting triangles (labeled W, X, Y, and Z). So I had been thinking about this model, and thought, I could design a variation on the theme. The result is shown above.

Once I had completed it, I realized I could not show this to the kids! It would just confuse them! The WXYZ Impostor looks like the model they were trying to create, but is slightly different in a way that is difficult to place. Check out the comparison below.
[Read more…]