Laughlins theory of emergence?

[statespace101]

I'm having a very time finding any techinal papers on Bob's "theory" of emergence. I liken it to a interpretational aspect of QM and am very interested to find more on the subject. Trying to find it on the net at least for me is next to impossible. Could anyone help me out here please? Thanks in advance

 

[statespace101]

Woops at the same time I should introduce myself. I've been studing QM independently for about 10 years and have collected about 4K worth in books. I consider my self fairly versed on the subject, and can tell y'all definately are. I here both to learn and to possibly expand some of y'alls views at the same time.

 

[ZapperZ]

I'm having a very time finding any techinal papers on Bob's "theory" of emergence. I liken it to a interpretational aspect of QM and am very interested to find more on the subject. Trying to find it on the net at least for me is next to impossible. Could anyone help me out here please? Thanks in advance

You may want to read my journal entry below. It has several links to Laughlin's references and more:

[09-20-2004 08:01 AM] - The Theory of Everything?

Secondly, this "emergence" idea is NOT an "interpretatonal aspect of QM". This would be wrong since it IS QM, only done at a many-body level.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

.. and oh, an addition to the references in that entry, you may also want to get his latest book

"A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down"
by Robert B. Laughlin

As Phil Anderson said in his review of this book, it is a welcome antidote to Brian Greene's books.

Zz.

 

[statespace101]

My bad I liken it to interpretational cause it seems to go deeper into QM than almost anything I've ever read. Thanks

 

[Q_Goest]

Zz said: However, there is another school of thought that would contradict the idea that GUT = TOE. This school of thought is made up of condensed matter physicists, which make up the largest percentage of practicing physicists. The most prominent condensed matter physicists who have stated their opposition to the reductionists idea are Phillip Anderson, Robert Laughlin, and David Pines. They brought up examples that are described as "emergent" phenomena, often seen in condensed matter. These are phenomena that only occurs, or can only be defined, when there are a gazillion interactions occurring. Examples of these are superconductivity, fractional quantum hall effect, magnetism, etc. Laughlin, for example, argued that if you try to write down all the interactions of a single electron in a conductor, no matter how many electrons you add up in your interactions, you will NEVER recover the superconductivity phenomenon. Superconductivity is an emergest phenomenon that is a result of a many-body interaction. The starting point in describing such a phenomenon MUST start not from a single particle scenario, but from a many-body ground state scenario. This effect emergers out of a many-body interaction and will simply disappears if one tries to take it apart to a single-particle level.

What this boils down to is the claim that GUT is the TOE for reductionism, not the TOE for physics. Anyone claiming the existence of any form of TOE will have to seriously address the glaring omission of a huge body of phoenomena from condensed matter physics, which holds some of the most highly verified observations with the highest degree of certainty in any field of physics.

I take it from your journal entry that there is no consensus that reducing the known universe to it's fundamental interactions will produce the emergent phenomena you mention above. Why is there no consensus on this? Your wording is very strongly in support of there being phenomena which can not emerge from these fundamental interactions. I'm not disagreeing, just wondering why, if this is such a glaring issue, that there seems to be so little consensus on it.

I printed out the papers you mention. Many thanks for the comments!

 

[ZapperZ]

I take it from your journal entry that there is no consensus that reducing the known universe to it's fundamental interactions will produce the emergent phenomena you mention above. Why is there no consensus on this? Your wording is very strongly in support of there being phenomena which can not emerge from these fundamental interactions. I'm not disagreeing, just wondering why, if this is such a glaring issue, that there seems to be so little consensus on it.

I printed out the papers you mention. Many thanks for the comments!

Your best bet is to get the Laughlin paper from Rev. Mod. Phys... or go to the Nobel Prize webpage and get a copy of his Nobel Lecture.

The reason why there is no consensus is because there is no way to test either conjecture, i.e. (i) that everything can be derived via reductionism, versus (ii) there are emergent phenomena that is as fundamental as any and cannot be taken apart to the single-particle scale. What we do have are indications. Particle physicists would say there's indications for Point (i) based on "historical reasons" while condensed matter physicists would argue for Point (ii) based on experimental evidence such as the fractional quantum hall effect, etc.

I suppose, in the end, it is a matter of "tastes". While I don't have the "smoking gun" to point to Point (ii), my whole point here is to point out that Point (i) and the TOE are not a done deal and are not a unanimously adopted by everyone in the physics community. And considering that the condensed matter physicists make up the LARGEST percentage of practicing physicists, this is not a group to be dismissed or ignored that easily.

Zz.

 

[statespace101]

Once again thanks I read those I've got to say this is what I always thought and have to say I largely agree with the condensed matter physicists. This one I esp liked made think.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0210/0210162.pdf

 

[ZapperZ]

Once again thanks I read those I've got to say this is what I always thought and have to say I largely agree with the condensed matter physicists. This one I esp liked made think.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0210/0210162.pdf

The irony in all of this is that S.C. Zhang started out as a high energy theorist. He made the jump into condensed matter physics and now he holds the same opinion as the rest of the CM community.

Zz.

 

[Gokul43201]

As Phil Anderson said in his review of this book, it is a welcome antidote to Brian Greene's books.

Haven't read Laughlin's book, but ...

 

[ZapperZ]

A review of Laughlin's book by a high-energy theorist (whoa!) is available in this month's Physics World

http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/18/7/1

As expected, there are "disagreements". Compare this with Phil Anderson's review of the same book (Nature v.434, p.701 (2005), and one can see that there ARE disagreements on this issue.

Zz.

 

[Sherlock]

A review of Laughlin's book by a high-energy theorist (whoa!) is available in this month's Physics World

http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/18/7/1

As expected, there are "disagreements". Compare this with Phil Anderson's review of the same book (Nature v.434, p.701 (2005), and one can see that there ARE disagreements on this issue.

Zz.

This review makes me want to get Laughlin's book.

I was somewhat surprise to read that maybe Laughlin doesn't
think too much of Big Bang cosmology. For a 'top-down' guy
like Laughlin, I would think that a big bang expanding
universe would hint at some answers to some basic
questions regarding how and why the universe has
emerged as it has.

Regarding the review author's statement that the
Standard Model works, I remember reading something
by Michael Turner a while back that suggested that maybe
there are some problems with the Standard Model in light
of certain astronomical observations.