Robert B. Laughlin
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Robert B. Laughlin
American physicst (1950–
Laughlin was born in Visalia, California, and gained his PhD in physics in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1989 he became professor of physics at Stanford University, where he did research on the fractional quantum Hall effect. For this work he shared the 1998 Nobel Prize for physics with Horst Störmer and Daniel Tsui, for explaining their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations.
Laughlin showed how electrons in a powerful magnetic field can condense to form a so-called ‘quantum fluid’ similar to those that occur in liquid helium and in superconductors. The theory derives ultimately from the Hall effect (the production of a voltage in a current-carrying conductor or semiconductor at right angles to a magnetic field), discovered in 1879 by the American physicist Edwin Hall. It occurs because electrons – the charge carriers – are deflected laterally in the magnetic field. A century later the German physicist Klaus von Klitzing discovered that in a powerful magnetic field at extremely low temperatures the Hall resistance of a semiconductor is quantized in integral ‘steps’.
Using even stronger magnetic fields and lower temperatures, Störmer and Tsui discovered more steps, called the fractional quantum Hall effect. A year later Laughlin theorized that the low temperature and powerful magnetic field forced the electrons to form a new type of quantum fluid. The addition of a single electron to this superfluid produced a number of fractionally charged quasiparticles, with the correct charges to account for the results of Störmer and Tsui.
Laughlin, Robert Betts, 1950-, American physicist, b. Visalia, Calif., Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1979. Laughlin was a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1981 to 2004, and has been a professor at Stanford since 1989. Laughlin was co-recipient, with Horst Störmer and Daniel Tsui, of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics. Störmer and Tsui had discovered that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of quasiparticles that have just a fraction of the electrical charge an electron is supposed to have. In 1983, Laughlin provided the theory underpinning observations made in the lab by Störmer and Tsui a year earlier, explaining that the electrons condense to form a kind of quantum fluid. The phenomenon is known as the fractional quantum Hall effect. He has written A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2005) and The Crime of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific Mind (2008).
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Robert B. Laughlin
| Robert Betts Laughlin | |
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| Born | November 1, 1950 Visalia, California, USA |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Theoretical Physics |
| Institutions | Stanford |
| Alma mater | MIT UC Berkeley |
| Known for | Quantum Hall effect |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in physics (1998), The Franklin Medal (1998) |
Robert Betts Laughlin (born November 1, 1950) is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics[1] and Applied Physics at Stanford University. Along with Horst L. Störmer of Columbia University and Daniel C. Tsui of Princeton University, he was awarded a share of the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics for their explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect.
Laughlin was born in Visalia, California. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.
Laughlin shares similar views to George Chapline, doubting the existence of black holes.[citation needed]
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Career
In 1983, Laughlin was first to provide a many body wave function, now known as the Laughlin wavefunction, for the fractional quantum hall effect, which was able to correctly explain the fractionalized charge observed in experiments. This state has since been interpreted to be a Bose-Einstein condensate.[2]
View on climate change
Laughlin's view of climate change is that it may be important, but the future is impossible to change. He writes "The geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we’re gazing into the energy future, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control." [3]
Publications
Laughlin published a book entitled A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down in 2005. The book argues for emergence as a replacement for reductionism, in addition to general commentary on hot-topic issues.
- Laughlin, Robert B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03828-2. (Trad. esp.: Un universo diferente. La reinvención de la física en la Edad de la Emergencia, Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores, 2007, ISBN 978-84-935432-9-7).
- Laughlin, Robert B. (2008). The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00507-9. (Trad. esp.: Crímenes de la razón. El fin de la mentalidad científica, Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores, 2010, ISBN 978-84-96859-68-5).
- Mente y materia. ¿Qué es la vida? Sobre la vigencia de Erwin Schrödinger (with Michael R. Hendrickson; Robert Pogue Harrison and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht), Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores, 2010, ISBN 978-84-92946-12-9.
References
- ^ Robert Laughlin – Stanford Physics Faculty. Stanford.edu. Retrieved on 2012-01-28.
- ^ "Nobel Focus: Current for a Small Charge". Physics Focus 2 (18). 1998. doi:10.1103/PhysRevFocus.2.18. http://physics.aps.org/story/v2/st18.
- ^ What the Earth Knows – Robert B. Laughlin. The American Scholar. Retrieved on 2012-01-28.
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Robert B. Laughlin |
- Photograph, Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
- Robert B. Laughlin autobiography
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