I am a condensed matter physicist who shows that the world around us is magic, and that you can be a wizard too. Ask me anything.

As someone who used to work at a middle school and would often "dress up" a lesson to appear one way if only to pique my students interests, it really is entertaining to me that a lot of the comments are missing the fact you're a legit physicist dressing up the wonder and awe we can find in science with "magical" terms.

I had a really cool teacher in high school who would do it constantly. My most memorable experiment of his was he talked about how he would turn soda cans into essentially hot air balloons and have them dance around the room. Talked it up for a couple of days even. When he did it, of course the can simply imploded, and then he had us do a short write up on why it didn't work.

I saw another comment where you use a cork and a glass of water to teach about surface tension. Can you share an experiment that can really wow a crowd in the 16-18 age group?

Thank you!

OK, here are a couple I've had some success with.

1. Get a plasma ball (perhaps borrow one off someone in 1993) and hold a strip light near it. The light lights up without any wires. Hold it at the end furthest from the ball. Then slide your finger along the light from your hand towards the ball, and the light goes out up to your finger. It's very lightsaber-like.
2. Harder to source, but I once saw someone get a tank of xenon and float a paper boat in it. That's really astounding to see. The xenon is invisible, and unlike helium it's heavier than air. The person I saw then breathed the xenon in and showed their voice got deeper rather than lighter. But they did this standing on their head, because while helium will float out of your lungs, xenon will get stuck and potentially suffocate you. So be careful! I mentioned this one in the book.

What do you think of people who haphazardly mix esoteric mumbo-jumbo with actual evidence-based methods of scientific inquiry in order to, say, sell books on the internet?

I'd say they should read this book, for sale on the internet, which contains only the latter!
I've tried to make it clear that 'magic', in the sense I use it in the book, is simply the ability of the world to inspire. That is of course not only compatible with science, but is the essence of why we study it.

is it wrong to use accessible language to interest people who otherwise wouldn't be?

Thank you, Necrotic_Messiah, that's exactly what I hoped to do. As I see it, there are many people not interested in science. Sometimes that's just personal preference. But more often I think people are told, by society and others, that they shouldn't be interested. This can be as subtle as depictions of scientists frequently fitting an outdated stereotype. And of course the people who are told science is not for them are more likely to belong to the groups which later go on to be under-represented in the subject.

But everyone can take inspiration in the world, and I thought that by trying to start from that common ground there might be a way to reach a new set of people that might not usually consider reading a popular science book. I think that's very important for the future of the subject, because a broader range of backgrounds of condensed matter physicists means a broader range of approaches and views brought to solving the open problems.

grants must not be panning out

It's true that UK scientists recently lost access to a major grant source in the form of funding by the European Research Council...

Iove books like yours that make things approachable, but I've been looking for books somewhere between an introduction to the topic for the public and a university text book. Any recommendations?

The Feynman Lectures on Physics are an excellent introduction. It's somewhere between a textbook and a mass market book, intended for college students who are interested in physics, and probably STEM majors but not necessarily physics majors or have a mathematical background beyond high school.

A bit old, and doesn't cover a lot of new stuff that came out, but it's still great IMO.

Definitely -- they're also freely available online:

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

I did make sure to include some more advanced topics, so that everyone gets something from it. For example, the fractional quantum Hall effect is often not covered in undergraduate textbooks, but I did what I could to explain it.

Why is condensed milk different from regular milk? Are there other things that can be condensed, such as juice, or pets?

Condensation usually means, say, water appearing on a window when it's cold. Gaseous water (water vapour) is turning into liquid water, because the interactions between water molecules cause them to stick together. The 'condensed' bit of condensed matter is a generalisation of this idea. We can say that solids are a condensed form of liquids, for example. In general we might say that condensed matter is the whole which is more than the sum of the parts: to describe liquid or solid water as individual molecules is to miss something important out of the description (the interactions, and therefore the familiar behaviour of water).

So in answer to your question, condensed milk has had some of the water evaporated off so as to become more viscous (sticky), as a result of the stronger interactions between what remains. Strictly milk and condensed milk are colloids (solid particles suspended in a liquid) rather than true liquids.

Can you explain to me like I'm 5 the following things which have bothered me my whole life:

how charge works. For example you have a proton and an electron and they get close to each other they will repel. What's happening there? Are they exchanging matter? Energy? Both?

Also what do scientists mean by dimensions. Like I've heard people say that certain matter might exist in several more dimensions?

That's a great (and difficult) question! The modern explanation is in terms of Feynman diagrams (he begins, to the 5 year old...). They describe all forces as being conveyed by particles. In the case of the attraction between opposite charges, the force (electromagnetism) is carried by photons. At the simplest level, one charge can emit a photon and the other catches it, receiving momentum and energy. So that's a simple answer.

But the photon itself has a probability to turn into an electron-positron pair along the way, before recombining into a photon. And there are other such processes which must be accounted for.

A dimension is really a 'degree of freedom'. For example, an ant essentially lives in two dimensions, rather than three, as it can't jump. It can move left or right (one degree of freedom), backwards or forwards (a second degree of freedom), but it can't move up and down. We can move in three dimensions.

You're quite right, though: quasicrystals are materials which are often said to display properties only possible in more than three dimensions. That's a bit misleading, though: the properties would only be possible for crystals in more than three dimensions, but they aren't crystals. So that's the trick.

My daughter is very young and everything I do is magick. I saw your wet fingerprint trick...sorry, illusion, and am wondering if there are any other little quantum hacks in our every day world that I can use to truly blow her mind and inspire a continued fascination with science and the world around her?

That sounds brilliant! Quite right, my illusion. I give a few examples of everyday science-magic tricks in the book, although explicitly quantum ones are tricky.

One I have been using in a talk is to show calcite, a crystal which when placed over the words in a book creates two copies of the words. Thinking of light as a beam there's no problem -- the beam splits in two like a forking river. But what is the beam made of? Einstein taught us it is made of individual particles of light called photons. But then try to interpret what's happening in calcite and it's bizarre. Because you see that you can send two identical photons in along identical paths, and one will go one way and one will go another. That goes against the basic principle of science, that under identical conditions we should measure the same results. It shows that the quantum world is necessarily probabilistic, rather than deterministic, and if that's not magical I don't know what is!

Something I try to show for my students is that you can carry out the 'quantum eraser' experiment at home if you have a laser pen and a polarisation filter (such as three sets of polarised lens glasses). You can look up how to do it -- it's tricky but possible, and the implications for the nature of reality are profound.

What is your favorite instance of amazingly terrible physics gobbledygook in a film or TV show?

One I quote in the book is from Timecop, an eternal source of amazing terrible physics. The first rule of time travel, they explain, is that "The same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time.". My philosopher friend pointed out why this is so great: surely, by definition, the same matter always occupies the same space at the same time.

In the book I assume they're referring to the Pauli exclusion principle, a consequence of which is that if two identical fermions share all their (other) observable properties they cannot exist at the same point in space.

Physics really is about wonder indeed. Maybe you know of Luc Langevin, Canadian phys engineer turned illusionist.

Anyways, how are you holding out in academia? How is life in fundamental sciences, do you feel research is valued enough by the powers that be? I've seen a few highly-motivated friends get their love of magic crushed and lose hope for their future. :(

I'll check them out, thanks!

I'm holding out well -- physics, I'd say, is valued well, although other subjects are having a harder time. I agree it can be hard to keep seeing the magic in the world, but it's there.

°11/22/22, make a wish°

What particles can't exist outside of crystals? What were you referring to as one of the best kept secrets in science?

I'm always on about Magic/Philosophy/Science/Art existing along the same line, reminds me of the book Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality,

and

A paper I wrote about how Art does have the power to create concepts, in contradiction to the thesis proposed in the book What is Philosophy? which states that only Philosophy, as a discipline, has the power to create concepts in the strictest sense.

Phonons are an example. They are particles of sound. We might define an elementary particle as 'something which can exist in the vacuum of space, which cannot be reduced to other things with that property'. So, photons, particles of light, are an example. But sound can't travel through space, so wouldn't typically admit a description in terms of particles.
However, sound can travel through matter. When it travels through a crystal we describe it mathematically as being conveyed by particles. These are phonons. The technical description of them is that they are 'quantized lattice vibrations', but that really just says they're particles of sound.

I suggested that condensed matter physics is one of science's best kept secrets, because it's the biggest area in physics (around a third of all physicists work on it), yet it's largely unknown to the public. I'm trying to address that!

Thanks for the references!

Alan Moore, writer of masterpieces like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, also calls himself a magician in this line of thinking.

He thinks up a story containing certain concepts, and by writing it down and disseminating that story, he conjurers up these same concepts, or even concepts he hadn't originally thought of himself, in the minds of others. That's magic according to him.

After hearing that I became much more receptive of the concept of magic, and have even taken to calling myself a magician as a computer scientist. I write spells in mysterious languages, which are then interpreted by magic crystals to either influence the physical world in some way, or to gain me knowlegde I didn't have without using my spells.

I think I had a similar realisation by listening to Alan Moore! He didn't quite convince me to worship the Roman snake god with a mullet haircut, though.
I agree completely regarding computer science. The book Neuromancer makes a similar point really nicely.

What’s the strongest forbidden magic spell and how can I use it?

Well I've defined 'forbidden magic' as the stuff it's impossible to do, i.e. violate the laws of thermodynamics. But the strongest allowed spell I know of is quantum entanglement. And you can use it for quantum computation, which can allow you to carry out certain calculations immeasurably faster than you could on traditional computers.

Any ideas for fun experiments for kids aged 7-11?

Yes! Try to get them to balance a cork in the centre of a glass of water. It always floats to the edge. But assure them it's possible with a bit of experimentation. The trick is to fill the glass full to slightly over-full, so that the water raises above the lip of the glass. Then the cork floats to the centre. It's a result of the meniscus, the curve on the surface of the water, switching. The meniscus itself is a result of the interactions between individual water molecules. They might observe that in a mercury thermometer the meniscus goes upwards automatically: this is due to the increased strength of interaction in that material.

In general I'd say you could take any of the tricks I mention in the book (presented as things to show off in the pub, but easily adaptable to another context!) as fun experiments for them to try. The cork is one example.

Does the big bang theory belief of the universe starting in an infinitely small point pose any challenges to physicists in regards to the laws of physics?

That's a great question. I think it's reasonable to say there are really a large set of theories which would group together under the heading 'the big bang'. Some friends of mine, for example, have considered the case where the universe will ultimately re-collapse to almost a point, but will slightly miss and re-expand. We might well live on the re-expanding bit.

There are various proposed modifications to include quantum mechanics into gravity, and many of these make other predictions about the big bang. In general quantum effects 'round off' divergences you find in classical theories. So, for example, a quantum theory would say that there is no sense in which the universe can have started from a region smaller than the Planck length.

Is there any working theory around a greater consciousness "net" or something similar? The first time I took mushrooms, I "saw" many things regarding our universe that had either not been discussed publicly at the time (2015) or rather I had not encountered. One such thing was the concept of "re-collapsing", but my ape mind interpreted it as "all positive, negative, and neutral matter and/or dark matter harmonizing into a single point and traversing the singularity unscathed, but if there wasn't perfect equilibrium, it would result in another 'big bang' " which seems nigh identical to your explained idea of "slightly missing".

That sounds like a pretty accurate rewording! Although I know that the particular scientist I'm thinking of has taken mushrooms at least once...

I love this! I'm from the States, but attended Cardiff Uni for my master's in ethnomusicology (focused on Welsh traditional music) back in 2014-15. I have always been awed by the principles of quantum physics, so this is absolutely fascinating to me. It's fantastic to hear about this research, conducted by a Cardiff Uni lecturer, no less!

Even before seeing your academic affiliation, I was reminded of a quote from one of my favorite authors, which is even more relevant given his and your ties to the magical city of Cardiff.

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." -Roald Dahl

That quote has always resonated with me. Magic is around us every day, we simply have to learn/know how to recognize it.

And I also love Philip Pullman's writing. Seeing the Northern Lights (possibly on a trip to Svalbard) is the only item on my bucket list.

My questions for you are:

1. Can you go into a little more detail about spells you can cast yourself? I think about people who light spell candles and/or intention candles. The color of the candle correlates to a specific category of spell/intention you want to be manifested / you want to manifest. You light the appropriate candle and then essentially meditate on the intention (whether with a spoken mantra, just in your mind, etc.). Some people may call this casting a spell. I think of it as focusing on an intention and then changing your own thoughts, behaviors, and actions to make the intention come to pass in real life. You yourself - your change in attitude/behavior - are the magic. I imagine your take on this is different because it is based on physics (external) rather than psychology (internal). I am curious to hear your perspective.

2. Where is the best place to purchase your book? By which I really mean, which online distributor is the most equitable / gives the most back to YOU?

Thank you for taking the time to do this AMA! I'm glad I scrolled by and learned a bit about you and your work. Best wishes for your book and all future research.

P.S. Great draw in the Men's World Cup yesterday. Cymru am byth. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Thanks for the great post. I didn't know the Roald Dahl quote, but that's exactly what I was aiming for! And yes, I particularly like Welsh as a very magical language. I only visited the arctic circle once, and it was completely clouded over -- during that week the aurora was visible from the UK for the first time in years and I missed it.

1. Yes, my take on magic is rooted in / a rewording of modern physics. But I do think there's an aesthetic sense which is quite intuitive, and I like your description of focussing intent.
2. Most books don't make back their advance, so I don't expect to see the money from book sales directly. But I'd like people to read it!

Felix, thanks for the AMA first of all.

I too want to become a wizard. Where should I start?

Well, I'm ashamed to admit I'm here peddling a book which answers that question in 320 pages of detail!

So, the magic starts buying your book?

Yes the magic starts about 30 minutes after buying the book (but may take up to two hours in some cases)

What is the accident that will lead to your villain origin story?

Or, to put it another way: how much do you hate Reed Richards?

I'm going to be straight with you. I hate Reed Richards. You saw Multiverse of Madness, right? He's supposed to be the cleverest person in the universe, yet he leads with "Hey, our secret weapon is that guy's voice -- I hope you don't stop him using it!". Does that mean I'm the villain already?

Can crystals have any effect on the space/people around them? eg, calmer, happier, motivated

Yes, but only by well established physical mechanisms. For example, if you are surrounded by crystals which you consider beautiful, I'm sure that will have a positive effect on your mood. I have a big box of crystals next to me right now, and my life is slightly more joyous for it!

Can quantum computers ever simulate bistromathics? Also what do you see in the total perspective vortex?

No, that is beyond even their ability.

I can't tell you what I saw, but I assure you it wasn't myself being a totally groovy guy.

What's your favourite thing you could elaborate on in relation to higgs boson and/or the LHC?

I think it should be more widely known that the Higgs mechanism was originally understood in materials called superconductors. There it is known as the Anderson mechanism, although typically we now say 'Anderson-Higgs mechanism'. All the phenomena associated with the Higgs boson appear in superconductors. Interestingly, they underlie the rather magical properties of that state of matter, such as its (unique) ability to perfectly expel magnetic fields. This leads to its ability to perfectly conduct electrical currents without resistance, which in turn has many practical uses.

What materials are being used for quantum computers? And what sorts of materials are being researched for feasibility for quantum computing?

A leading approach is to use superconductors. These are a new state of matter, currently only found at very low temperatures. They are often said to manifest the unfamiliar laws of quantum mechanics on our everyday scales. I discuss the accuracy of that assertion in the book, but there's some truth to it. The fact they can be used for quantum computers is related.

How would you build a lightsaber if you had access to any theoretically possible tech? How close to accurate do you think you could get?

I actually tried to design one when I was a child! I thought the best approach was to use a solid object, but to establish a plasma coating which could be used to efficiently deflect lasers. So it's a bit of a cheat.

From another angle, I built a few laser pens powerful enough to cut through paper by extracting the laser diodes from CD rewriters. It's straightforward if you can find such a device these days! I do have a scar on my hand from testing it, though...

What's your favourite flavor of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans?

I think probably the flavour of the colour blue. How about you?

Will we ever get batteries that don't degrade over time?

My feeling is that any practical attempt would be stymied by the second law of thermodynamics, but we've come up some pretty ingenious things...

If you could engineer any system you like on an optical lattice to emulate its properties and solve all your burning questions, which system would it be?

I guess I'm morally obligated to say we should simulate a Hopf insulator using optical lattices, since I was involved in this paper proposing to do so:

https://www.felixflicker.com/pdf/papers/FLICKER35.pdf

Does quantum science imply an inherent “randomness” to the universe such that events are probabilistic and not deterministic? Does this have any implications for how you view “free will” or decision-making?

Thanks for doing this!

Yes, quantum mechanics implies that certain processes are probabilistic, and that is really magical. However, I personally don't think it implies much for consciousness. My understanding is that neuroscience has found that the process we think of as making a decision is actually just us rationalising the decision which we already made subconsciously. So I don't think we need to appeal to quantum indeterminacy. But perhaps a philosopher would disagree with me.

Are there particles/gasses released from heating iron-chromium-aluminium alloys aka Kanthal? If so, how can a person learn more about it and is it easy to determine the amounts of those releases per volume as a function of temperature? Many thanks, I appreciate your profession and even more your initiative.

Counterintuitively, all solid matter evaporates. This leads to 'vapour pressure'. When lightbulbs were made from a thin strip of metal with a current passed through it, the bulb had to be filled with an inert gas to stop the metal filament evaporating too quickly. There are various formulae for the rate of evaporation of different materials. Thanks for the good question!

Do you consider yourself religious or spiritual? How does the magick of matter influence your answer? Thank you for this cool ama!

Personally, no. Sorry if that's disappointing! But part of the purpose of the book is to try to find common ground beyond the community of people who might usually read a popular science book, and I hope the magical angle can achieve this.

Can you ELI5 Calabi - You spaces?

As mathematical constructions Calabi Yau Manifolds are just rather complicated (and often quite beautiful) surfaces. As means for explaining reality, I'm rather skeptical!

Do you think the loss of cheap helium is going to significantly hurt your field of study or will recovery systems end up evening things out in the long run?

Good question! I suspect it will cause problems, but as you say maybe we'll work around them. A lot of the interesting states of matter I think about require helium-based cryogenics. But I'm a theorist, so don't do the experiments myself. Still, I rely on those experiments being done.

How come when I look up your book on Amazon, the heading is "The Physicks of Dirt"? Different name for different regions?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1788167481/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Hah! That's an outdated title from an earlier draft. It's The Magick of Matter in the UK, and The Magick of Physics in the US (out next year). I am not responsible for any of the 'k's!

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Does excelling in stem field require certain type of brain ?, I.e some people will always be mediocre no ,matter how hard they try?

I don't think so. I really believe that the important thing is being interested and motivated. Training comes later -- will is everything.

I'm sorry but I'm a little bit skeptical about the magic talk. But I always try to keep an open mind, so with that said is there any basic knowledge or simple exercise that you can give me to make myself less skeptical?

By magic I only mean the world's ability to inspire, whatever form that takes for you. I should mention that the book is entirely about current ideas in modern physics, rather than anything more esoteric.

Is magick observable from an outsiders perspective or is it an individual thing? If it is observable how can I observe it right now?

Secondly, what are your thoughts on psychosis? It's a very broad question so if you would like me to be specific I can.

Personally I'd define magic as the world's ability to inspire. In that sense I'd probably say it's observable to all, but but individuals might find different things inspiring. But the tricky bit is that it's hard to see the magic in the familiar. It's there, but it's more subtle. If you want an example right now, grab a glass, fill it with water, get your finger slightly wet, and press it on the outside of the glass. Look at your finger through the water. Do you see your fingerprints very clearly? This is a consequence of a quantum mechanical effect. That's pretty magical, right? On your second part, I don't have much knowledge about psychosis, and would not feel qualified to comment, sorry.