NS 101-102 Seminar Series: A. Nihat Berker

Dr. Nihat Berker will give a seminar entitled “Phase Transitions, Critical Points, and a Simple Theory” in the NS101-102 Seminar Series. The seminar will be on Wednesday, January 4, at 12:40-13:30 pm in FASS G022. Please join us for this interesting talk.

NS101-102 Family

Phase Transitions, Critical Points, and a Simple Theory

At a phase transition, where for example a solid turns into a liquid, discontinuous changes (jumps) appear in the appearance and properties of matter. Furthermore, at certain types of phase transitions, the response of the system to external probes goes to infinity in a matter characterized by critical exponents. These critical exponents are universal, meaning that they are shared by very different physical systems. A simple theory, based on connecting the properties of different length scales, explains all of these phenomena.