Library

Welcome to my library! 

You'll find introductory information and core ideas needed to understand condensed matter and quantum many-body physics research. Before you start, you'll need to have a basic understanding of quantum mechanics. So, if you don't understand what this says:

The equation shown above is the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. For more information on the formalism and interpretation of fundamental quantum mechanics, you can reference David J. Griffith's "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics". For a more nuanced discussion, you can reference J. J. Sakurai's "Modern Quantum Mechanics". 

The Big Picture

How does one study the internal properties of a solid? What are the fundamental building blocks of matter? Why does light reflect off of a mirror? 

All of these questions are intricately related to what is generally termed "condensed matter" physics (CMP). You can think of CMP as a mix of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, scattering theory, lattice theory, field theory, and most recently quantum information theory. Put simply, CMP is complex, studies systems with many variables (i.e. large degrees of freedom), and focuses on emergent properties. I like to believe that CMP fundamentally started with the advent of thermodynamics, which has origins dating back to the 17th century. There are many practical outcomes from the pioneers of thermodynamics, such as the refrigerator, the engine, and the thermometer. There are 3 fundamental laws and (at least) one crucial results that revolutionized our conceptual framework of the universe. 

First Law of Thermodynamics

Second Law of Thermodynamics