In embarking on his biography of von Neumann, Bhattacharya sets himself a considerable challenge: writing about a man who, through crisis after crisis, through stormy intellectual disagreements and amid political controversy, contrived always, for his own sake and others, to avoid unnecessary drama. Whats a biographer to do, when part of his subjects genius is his ability to blend in with his friends and lead a good life? How to dramatise a man without flaws, who skates through life without any of the personal turmoil that makes for gripping storytelling?

If some lives resist the storytellers art, Bhattacharya does a cracking job of hiding the fact. He sensibly, and ably, moves the biographical goal-posts, making this not so much the story of a flesh-and-blood man, more the story of how an intellect evolves, moving as intellects often do (though rarely so spectacularly) from theoretical concerns to their application to their philosophy. As he moved from pure mathematics to physics to economics to engineering, observed former colleague Freeman Dyson, [Von Neumann] became steadily less deep and steadily more important.

Von Neumann did not really trust humanity to live up, morally, to its technical capacities. What we are creating now, he told his wife, after a sleepless night contemplating an H-bomb design, is a monster whose influence is going to change history, provided there is any history left. He was a quintessentially European pessimist, forged by years that saw the world he had grown up in being utterly destroyed. It was no mere cynic, though, who wrote, We will be able to go into space way beyond the moon if only people could keep pace with what they create.

Bhattacharyas agile, intelligent, intellectually enraptured account of Von Neumanns life reveals, after all, not a man from the future, not a one-dimensional cold-war warrior and for sure not Dr Strangelove (though Peter Sellers nicked his accent). Bhattacharya argues convincingly that Von Neumann was a man in whose extraordinarily fertile head the pre-war world found a lifeboat.

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann is published by Allen Lane at 20. To order your copy for 16.99 call 0844 871 1514 or visit the Telegraph Bookshop

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From the atom bomb to quantum physics: how John Von Neumann changed the world - Telegraph.co.uk

In a new FLEET theoretical study published recently in PhysicalReview Letters, the so called smoking gun in the search for the topological magnetic monopole also known as the Berry curvature has been found.

The discovery is a breakthrough in the search for topological effects in non-equilibrium systems.

The group, led by UNSW physicist and Associate Professor, Dimi Culcer, identified an unconventional Hall effect, driven by an in-plane magnetic field in semiconductor hole systems that can be traced exclusively to the Berry curvature.

Enhanced topological effects will permit low-energy topological electronics to be viable for large-scale, room-temperature operation, and therefore support the IEEE roadmap towards future electronics sustainability.

Isolating topological responses in regular conductors has been a historically difficult task, says research team leader A/Prof Dimi Culcer (UNSW). Even though these topological responses are believed to be ubiquitous in solids.

Quantized responses, such as the quantum Hall and quantum spin-Hall effects provide a clear fingerprint of topology, yet these have only been observed in one-dimensional (1D) systems and are intimately connected with the existence of edge states.

An experimental set-up for measuring conventional Hall effect with magnetic field perpendicular to the surface. Credit: FLEET

In `regular conductors, meaning 2D and 3D systems, plenty of theoretical literature exists predicting topological contributions to e.g. the anomalous Hall effect, but these have never been observed unambiguously in a transport measurement.

There are two main reasons for this: (i) spin-up and spin-down electrons usually make opposite contributions, and these nearly cancel out; (ii) whatever is left is overwhelmed by disorder.

The new FLEET paper remedies this long-standing shortcoming by identifying a two-dimensional system in which the Berry curvature, and only the Berry curvature, is responsible for the Hall signal linear in the applied in-plane magnetic field.

Remarkably, all disorder contributions vanish: we are not aware of any other multi-dimensional system in which this is true, says lead author, UNSW PhD student James Cullen. Its experimental measurement is accessible to any state-of-the-art laboratory worldwide, hence we expect strong interest from experimentalists.

The research team sought the tell-tale mathematical trace called Berry curvature, which can be understood if we think of the concept of parallel transport that appears routinely in geometry and general relativity.

Think of a vector as an arrow that we place somewhere on the surface of a solid object, explains Dimi. Now we move the arrow around, making sure it always points at the same angle to the surface this is in fact like a human being walking along the surface of the Earth. We eventually bring the arrow back to the starting point after it has circled around, and we find that, in general, it points in a different direction it has magically rotated through some angle. The size of this angle is determined by the curvature of the surface.

Hall conductivity response to magnetic field. Credit: FLEET

In quantum mechanics, instead of vectors we have wave functions, but we can describe the dynamics using the same picture, and the curvature is called the Berry curvature.

The angle of rotation is replaced by the famous Berry phase, named after the mathematical physicist Prof Sir Michael Berry, who formulated the problem in the 1980s. Later on, building on work by Nobel laureate David Thouless, Qian Niu of UT Austin showed that the Berry curvature behaves like the coveted magnetic monopolebut not in real space, rather in momentum space, which is the space most condensed-matter physicists think in.

The Berry curvature drives topological effects in out-of-equilibrium systems because when an electric field is applied an electron is accelerated, so its momentum changes. When this happens its wave function changes slowly, in the same way that the `arrow is rotated in parallel transport, and as a result of this gradual rotation a transverse (Hall) current is generated. The Onsager relations, which are fundamental to non-equilibrium physics, say that the Hall current does not dissipate energy. The extreme case is the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE), a quantum effect key to the function of topological materials, in which edge currents can flow with effectively zero electrical resistance.

(Quantum describes step transition in the transverse (Hall) resistance ie, it varies in discrete steps rather than smoothlywhile anomalous refers to the phenomenons occurrence in the absence of any applied magnetic field.)

Researchers seek to enhance QAHE in order to protect topological behaviour at higher temperatures, allowing for topological electronics that would be viable for room-temperature operation.

The significant reduction in electrical resistance permitted by room temperature QAHE would allow us to significantly reduce the power consumption in electronic devices, says Dimi.

Reference: Generating a topological anomalous Hall effect in a non-magnetic conductor: an in-plane magnetic field as a direct probe of the Berry curvature by James H. Cullen, Pankaj Bhalla, E. Marcellina, A.R. Hamilton and Dimitrie Culcer, 21 June 2021, Physical Review Letters.DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.256601

As well as support from theAustralian Research Council(Centres of Excellence program) the authors acknowledge the support of the National Key Research and Development Program (China), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

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Breakthrough Smoking Gun Discovery in Power Consumption in Electronic Devices - SciTechDaily

Some entrepreneurs can point to a single moment that defined their trajectory, but that is not the case for me. In fact, my career path has been defined by understanding when a new path was necessary and seizing the opportunity to take it.

I started my career as a carpenter, then went to university to become a quantum physicist. Not a typical occupational decision, to be sure. But I found inspiration again during my schooling (or perhaps it found me). After a personal incident, which Ill explain later, a light bulb moment occurred: What if we reimagine the medical records retrieval process? Lets simplify access for patients and make it easier for them to share their information with whoever needs it. That idea led me to where I am today.

Over time, three lessons have stuck with me and have guided me through some of the most challenging career decisions Ive had to make: Define and stay true to your mission, embrace the concept of conviction and be willing to bet big. While the journey to where I am today hasnt been the easiest, Ive found that dedicating myself to these three principles has served me well.

So many times, you know what you want to do, but do you know why you want to do it? Every entrepreneur should spend time answering this question honestly. There are many motivating factors for starting a business, but there must be a reason for doing it that resonates deeply within you.

That is your mission, and it must be grounded in your core values and beliefs. Your mission will serve as your companys North Star, guiding your next moves. But just identifying your mission isnt enoughyou have to execute it consistently, even if that means passing on an opportunity that isnt in line with the mission statement.

Because youll also be surrounding yourself with those who believe in the mission, staying true to it is key to maintaining the culture youre trying to nurture. Your staff must also feel empowered to share ideas that will enforce the mission and speak up when they think specific plans dont live up to it.

If you dont believe in what youre doing, no one else will either. So if youre all-in on your mission, you must exude that conviction. For example, a VC firm or potential customer is not only investing in your idea, but also in your ability to execute on that idea. That same sense of confidence goes for keeping a staff who can move the company forward. Your people wont embrace the mission if they dont see that passion from leadership.

To be fair, this suggestion might seem to contradict previous advice about being willing to pivot. While it is undoubtedly a fine line, I believe the two are equally crucial to suggestions. Someone wise once told me you should have strong opinions, weakly held. Yes, you should believe 100 percent in your idea, but you should challenge yourself to see if evidence suggests that you could be on the wrong path and move decisively.

While conviction is critical, there are times when evidence indicates that another idea simply makes more sense. I learned this lesson more than once.

Nine years ago, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and fought a long battle across multiple hospital systems, providers and caregivers. Amid unimaginable stress, my mother-in-law was also responsible for retrieving many of his medical records from different sources to help direct the next steps of his care. It was during this time that inspiration hit.

I decided to start a company to simplify the medical records retrieval process for patients and their families. When I was pursuing quantum physics, I could never have imagined what might catapult me from my lab. When I faced the challenge to help my in-laws, the force was great and served as new inspiration to step out of my comfort zone.

Then, another difficult decision occurred a few years later after cofounding the company. Once we got the business up and running, we came to a cold realization: The market wasnt set for this kind of company when patients are the customers. It was a hard pill to swallow since we were dedicated to staying true to our original mission of helping patients gain greater control of their medical records.

At this point, it was clear that we had to be open to the possibility that our original idea, our first big bet, would not lead us to success. We shifted to a more viable business model that still helped patients gain greater control of their data while targeting specific companies that use that data to make patient lives better. Instead of rolling a snowball uphill, we realized that we could relent to the market forces while staying true to our mission. Fortunately, we bet on another model, which has put us on a very successful track and which will take us through future stages in our plan.

While my resume is unconventional, it has created a textured tapestry of experiences. More than anything, my career has reaffirmed my belief that a commitment to core values, flexibility and conviction are the foundation for long-term success.

James Bateman is cofounder and CEO of Medchart. He and his team are on a mission to simplify access to patient-authorized information for businesses beyond care.

An indispensable guide to finance, investing and entrepreneurship.

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One CEOs Foundations for Success: Core Values, Flexibility and Conviction - Worth

Professor Joe Gomes;University of Iowa, Department of Chemical and Biochemical EngineeringBio:Joe Gomes is an assistant professor in the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department at the University of Iowa. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois-Chicago and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Chemistry and Bioengineering Departments at Stanford University. Dr. Gomes conducts research in the areas of theoretical chemistry, machine learning, energy materials, and catalysis.

Abstract:Many important challenges in science and technology can be cast as optimization problems. The development of improved heuristic algorithms for determining approximate solutions to these optimization problems has high potential for impact across many disciplines. We propose an efficient heuristic algorithm for solving hard optimization problems which we refer to as Classical Quantum Optimization (CQO). Our approach consists of: (1) converting the optimization problem of interest into a (classical or quantum) spin glass Hamiltonian where the ground state configuration of this system encodes the optimal solution to the problem at hand, and (2) the variational optimization of a neural network representation of the ground state of the many-body system given by the problem-specific Hamiltonian. We demonstrate the utility of CQO on optimization problems found in graph theory. We compare CQO against other widely used heuristic solver algorithms and exact results when possible. The results show that CQO achieves state-of-the-art approximation ratio solutions for the MaxCut problem. We highlight potential applications of CQO towards solving the quantum chemical electronic structure problem.

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Condensed Matter Seminar - Professor Joe Gomes | Physics and Astronomy | The University of Iowa - Iowa Now

Around seven years ago, Garrett was in a local Pizza Hut with his friends, having a day so ordinary that it is cumbersome to describe. He was 16 or thereabouts and had been told by teachers to go around nearby businesses and ask for gift vouchers that the school could use as prizes in a raffle. There were five other teenagers with Garrett, and theyd just finished speaking to the restaurant manager when suddenly, out of nowhere, Garretts body was flooded with shock. He felt cold and clammy and had an overwhelming sense that something had happened. He desperately tried to stop himself crying in front of his peers.

It was like Id just been told something terrible, the now 23-year-old from the southwest of England says (his name has been changed on his request). I couldnt tell you exactly what it was, but I just knew something had happened. Garrett returned home and tried to distract himself from a feeling he describes as grief. The phone rang. His mum answered it. A few hours earlier around the time Garrett was in the restaurant his grandfather had died from a sudden heart attack while on a cruise.

Although theres no way of knowing how many people worldwide feel that they sensed a loved ones death before being told, its a phenomenon thats been explored in everything from Star Wars to Downtown Abbey to Kung Fu Panda 2. Perhaps one of your own relatives has a story similar to Garretts perhaps you dismissed it, perhaps you treat it as family lore. Is there any evidence to suggest this phenomenon is real that humans can sense one anothers passing from a distance, that Garretts emotional afternoon was anything more than a coincidence? In a word, no. Meanwhile, it is well documented that the human mind is a bundle of bias: false memories, grief hallucinations and confirmation bias can easily explain these experiences. Besides which, for every person who feels a shiver when their loved one dies, there are hundreds more who were quietly eating pizza or happily riding a rollercoaster or bored doing maths homework completely unaware of their loss.

But are these dismissals too quick? Too easy? Some scientists claim that the complex world of quantum physics could be used to explain the paranormal (other scientists say theyre unbelievably wrong.) What can stories like Garretts tell us about what we do and dont know? What we are and arent willing to believe? About the disconnect between what some claim to experience and others claim is impossible?

Brian Josephson is your prototypical professor. With tufts of white hair atop his head, a knitted top and a glasses chain keeping his specs safe, he says via Zoom that, The academic community is a kind of club. Youre supposed to believe certain things and you run into problems if you disagree. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on superconductivity. Later, during his time as a professor at the University of Cambridge, he began using quantum mechanics to explore consciousness and the paranormal.

Quantum entanglement nicknamed spooky action at a distance by Albert Einstein describes the (proven) phenomenon of two spatially separated particles influencing each other, even over large distances. While the phenomenon is subatomic, academics such as Josephson have theorised that quantum entanglement could explain phenomena like telepathy and psychokinesis.

There are many accounts of crisis telepathy, says Dean Radin, a parapsychologist and author of Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality. Does entanglement explain these effects? No, in the sense that entanglement as observed today in the physics lab, between pairs of photons, is extremely fragile and typically lasts only minuscule fractions of a second. But also, yes, in that we are at the earliest stages of understanding entanglement.

Radin says studies in quantum biology show that entanglement-type effects are present in living systems (academics from Oxford have successfully entangled bacteria) and he believes the human brain could in turn have quantum properties. If that is subsequently demonstrated I think its just a matter of time then that would go a long way towards providing a physical mechanism for telepathy, he says.

Put down your pen, scrunch up your letter to the editor. You only need an explanation for telepathy if you believe in telepathy in the first place, and experiments purporting its existence have been widely debunked. Josephson and Radin are regularly criticised by peers. In 2001, when Royal Mail released a set of stamps to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize, there was outrage when Josephson wrote in an accompanying booklet that quantum physics may lead to an explanation for telepathy. In this very newspaper, academics branded the claim utter rubbish and complete nonsense.

When reviewing Entangled Minds for The Skeptics Dictionary, philosophy professor and professional sceptic Robert Carroll wrote that Radins book was aimed at non-scientists who are likely to be impressed by references to quantum physics.

Garrett has no idea what happened to him on the day his grandad died, but he is certain that it happened. He believes in some kind of interconnectedness between people. I think if its happened to you, then theres an underlying accepting of it, he says.

This is a sentiment shared by the self-described naturally sceptical Cassius Griesbach, a 24-year-old from Wisconsin who lost his grandfather in 2012. Griesbach says that he shot awake on the night his grandad passed and began to sob uncontrollably. It felt like something just rocked me, physically, he says. When his dad called moments later to say his grandad had died, a teenaged Griesbach replied: I know.

Griesbach doesnt blame anyone for being sceptical of his story. The further you get away from it, the more I would like to write it off as a coincidence, he says, But every time I sit down and think about it, it feels like its something else. Griesbach is not super religious and doesnt believe in ghosts. If it is something to do with actual science, I would think that would be science that we are nowhere near yet, you know?

Many would disagree, arguing that the answer lies in the social sciences. In 2014, Michael Shermer married Jennifer, who had moved from Kln to California and brought with her a 1978 radio belonging to her late grandfather. Shermer tried in vain to fix it before tossing it in a drawer, where it lay silent until the couple said their wedding vows at home months later. Just as Jennifer was keenly feeling the absence of her grandfather, the radio began to play a romantic song. It continued all night before it stopped working for good the next day.

Its just one of those anomalous experiences, says Shermer, a science historian, professional sceptic and author of The Believing Brain: from Spiritual Faiths to Political Convictions. How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. Randomness and chance play a big role in life and in the world, and our brains are designed to see patterns not randomness. Shermer argues that experiences like Garretts and Griesbachs are statistically more likely than we think.

You have billions of people worldwide having dozens of dreams [each] at night, he says. The odds are pretty good that on any given night, somebodys going to have a dream about somebody dying who actually dies. Thats inevitable. At the same time, he argues, we ignore all the times we suddenly sob or shudder and it turns out that no ones died or the times when someone does die and we dont feel anything at all.

There are other prosaic explanations. While Garretts grandfathers death was sudden and unexpected, Griesbachs grandfather was hospitalised the week before he died, when he shot awake in the middle of the night, Griesbachs first thought was, It happened he knew his grandfather had passed. But is that surprising when hed spent a week by his bedside?

John Bedard, a 36-year-old in Los Angeles, woke suddenly on the night his parents died. He was 10 and sleeping at a friends house when he awoke, just knowing something was wrong. He called his brother, sobbing. When his brother picked him up, he told Bedard their parents had died in a motorcycle accident.

And yet, there were clues that something was wrong much earlier. The sleepover wasnt planned Bedard had gone to friends to play when it started getting later and later and nobody came to pick him up. It was a Sunday night an unusual night to have a sleepover. Bedard was uneasy when he went to bed.

Despite these answers, explanations continue to be toyed with. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and parapsychologist who conceived of morphic resonance, the idea that interconnections exist between organisms. He believes the human mind has fields that stretch beyond the brain, much like electromagnetic fields. This, he says, explains why we can seemingly tell when someone behind us is staring at us, or why we sometimes think of someone right before they call. (Sheldrakes work has been called heresy in the journal Nature.)

Im not talking about the supernatural; I think these things are totally natural. I think theyre normal, not paranormal, he says. When it comes to experiences like Garretts, he says empirical studies are impossible. You cant ask somebody to die at a randomly selected time to see if their nearest and dearest respond So unfortunately, the evidence for cases to do with death has to be circumstantial.

Shermer is not a Sheldrake fan. The idea that a biologist like Rupert Sheldrake is going to uncover some new force of nature that somehow Einstein and everybody else has missed is just so unlikely to have happened, that almost any explanation like the ones Ive been giving you are way more likely. Josephsons rebuke of such criticisms: People say that [science is] always subject to revision and yet theyre secretly convinced that certain things cant happen.

What can and cant happen doesnt change what many feel has happened Garrett, Griesbach and Bedard all believe something strange and unexplainable occurred when they lost their loved ones. At the very least, these stories undeniably offer comfort.

As far as looking into it, I dont even know what there is to look into, Griesbach says after all, the phenomenon doesnt even have a name. I think the best thing that we could do for people is validate how they feel and let them grieve. Because whenever people have that happen, theyre also grieving. That is one of the most important times to just be a kind human to somebody.

This article was amended on 24 October 2021. In an earlier version Professor Josephson, speaking about the academic community, was quoted as saying: Youre supposed to believe certain things and you run into problems you disagree with. His actual quote was: Youre supposed to believe certain things and you run into problems if you disagree.

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I knew that was going to happen The truth about premonitions - The Guardian