Theoretical Condensed-Matter Physics

N. David Mermin

Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus

321 Clark Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853

(607) 255-9689
(607) 255-6428 (fax)

ndm4@cornell.edu

personal website

Ph.D.,1961, Physics, Harvard.

Research Areas
My current activities are described on my homepage.

Current Research

Spotlight

Yan-Jiun Chen is a graduate student working with Professor Jim Sethna studying non-equilibrium statistical physics, in particular, the scaling properties of crackling noise in magnets. As a magnet is magnetized, magnetic spins flip in avalanches of all different sizes, this is called the Barkhausen effect (or crackling noise). The properties of these avalanches exhibit self-similarity, and can be studied using powerful theoretical tools in the form of the renormalization group (RG). This means that studying these avalanches can tell us ...
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