Name: What in the world is topological quantum matter?
Uploaded: 2023-08-07T14:28:51Z
Duration: 4 min 42 s
Description: David Thouless, Duncan Haldane, and Michael Kosterlitz won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2016 for discovering that even microscopic matter at the smallest scale can exhibit macroscopic properties and phases that are topological. But ... what does that mean? Fan Zhang helps decode some seriously tricky science. [Directed by Anton Trofimov, narrated by Addison Anderson].

Fan Zhang: What in the world is topological quantum matter?

What in the world is topological quantum matter?

David Thouless, Duncan Haldane, and Michael Kosterlitz won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2016 for discovering that even microscopic matter at the smallest scale can exhibit macroscopic properties and phases that are topological. But ... what does that mean? Fan Zhang helps decode some seriously tricky science. [Directed by Anton Trofimov, narrated by Addison Anderson].

The discovery that microscopic particles can display robust topological properties, like a coffee cup and donut sharing the same 'hole,' is reshaping physics. Thanks to Nobel-winning breakthroughs, materials now exist where electrons travel perfectly along the edges, undisturbed by flaws. This stability could fuel electronics that never lose energy and quantum computers that calculate with unprecedented accuracy. Once pure mathematics, topology now powers concrete advances in science and technology.