A layperson-friendly dive into superconductivity: how two electrons can pair up via a phonon-mediated attraction to form Cooper pairs, become bosons, and condense into a single quantum state that carries current with zero resistance. We unpack the BCS picture, the energy gap that blocks scattering, the isotope effect as evidence, and how these ideas extend to other quantum fluids. We’ll also explore future directions—could alternative glues like excitons or plasmons raise the superconducting ...
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A layperson-friendly dive into superconductivity: how two electrons can pair up via a phonon-mediated attraction to form Cooper pairs, become bosons, and condense into a single quantum state that carries current with zero resistance. We unpack the BCS picture, the energy gap that blocks scattering, the isotope effect as evidence, and how these ideas extend to other quantum fluids. We’ll also explore future directions—could alternative glues like excitons or plasmons raise the superconducting ...
Tiny Brains, Big Timings: The Bumblebee Time-Processing Breakthrough
Intellectually Curious
5 minutes
1 week ago
Tiny Brains, Big Timings: The Bumblebee Time-Processing Breakthrough
A deep dive into a QMUL study where Bombus terrestris bees learned to differentiate visual signals solely by duration, revealing timing as a fundamental neural property even in tiny brains. We walk through the dot-vs-dash training, how rewards and non-rewards were removed to test pure timing, and the surprising result that over 80% chose the previously rewarded signal without rewards. We also discuss a second finding on goal-directed learning from bees observing a ball-pushing task, and what ...
Intellectually Curious
A layperson-friendly dive into superconductivity: how two electrons can pair up via a phonon-mediated attraction to form Cooper pairs, become bosons, and condense into a single quantum state that carries current with zero resistance. We unpack the BCS picture, the energy gap that blocks scattering, the isotope effect as evidence, and how these ideas extend to other quantum fluids. We’ll also explore future directions—could alternative glues like excitons or plasmons raise the superconducting ...
