KITP Public Lecture: Mehran Kardar (MIT)
**Events may have been canceled or postponed. Please contact the venue to confirm the event.
Date & Time
Tue, Jun 09 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Address (map)
Kohn Hall, UC Santa Barbara
Venue (website)
UCSB - Kohn Hall
Join the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics for the next exciting installment in the KITP Public Lecture series, “The Force of Nothing: Attraction, Repulsion, and Motion in the Quantum Void” with Mehran Kardar (MIT).
The quantum vacuum is filled with fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. When material boundaries constrain these fluctuations, they exert measurable forces: the Casimir effect describes an attraction between uncharged conductors arising solely from the confinement of the quantum void. Discussions during two KITP programs were especially influential in connecting this remarkable quantum phenomenon to broader ideas of attraction, repulsion, and mechanical work.
After introducing the origin and measurement of the Casimir force, Prof. Kardar will discuss whether it can be made repulsive, and why true levitation remains elusive in equilibrium. Extending these ideas beyond equilibrium reveals new possibilities: radiation pressure from heat, nonreciprocal materials that generate motion and work without contact, and rotating bodies that spontaneously emit light. Together, these examples show how the restless quantum vacuum continues to surprise us.
