Meet our new academic staff from the Department of Physics

What first attracted you to the field of Physics?

My earliest physics memory is at 6 years old, when my dad showed me a beautiful illustration of an atom inside a book – The Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Science. The picture showed electrons whizzing around the nucleus, itself composed of protons and neutrons, and all of the particles looked like little snooker balls.

I have spent the rest of my career learning, to increasing degrees of sophistication, why that picture is completely wrong. I still have (and love) the book, though!

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about Physics?

I think the biggest misconception that people have about physics, and science in general, is that scientists claim to have all the answers. Actually, science is all about dealing with uncertainty.

Any time a scientist claims to have learned something, they are also required to quantify their uncertainty. This honesty about uncertainty is one of the reasons why the scientific method has proven so successful at helping us to reach consensus about complex questions.

What's the biggest mystery in science you'd love to solve or see solved?

The measurement problem of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics predicts that an isolated system evolves deterministically, in a superposition of many different possibilities all at once.

But whenever we measure the system, it is forced to randomly choose one of those possibilities. Why do we only ever observe only one outcome, and how does the system know which one to choose? It's the biggest conundrum in quantum physics.

What advice would you give to someone considering studying Physics?

Do it! I was never bored, and constantly surprised and awed, by what I learned in my physics degree – I still feel that way in my current job as a researcher. And even if you don’t want to become an academic (most people don’t), a physics qualification will give you many helpful skills: mathematics, coding, critical thinking, modelling, etc.

What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?

I used to moonlight as a drum and bass DJ. These days, I only play at my friends’ weddings!

What are you currently working on?

I am interested in questions at the intersection of thermodynamics — the physics of energy, entropy, and information — and metrology — the science of measurement. Questions like: How much energy does a measurement fundamentally cost? Does thermodynamics limit what we can learn about the universe? Apart from the foundational questions, I am interested in developing new computational tools to study quantum systems that are very far from equilibrium.

More generally speaking, my research aims to understand how quantum systems are affected by random fluctuations from their environment. “Quantum system” means anything that is small enough or cold enough to manifest the weird effects synonymous with quantum mechanics (superposition, entanglement, etc).

Examples are individual trapped atoms or electrical circuits that are cooled down to temperatures close to absolute zero. These systems are studied routinely in labs around the world, and I collaborate closely with several experimental physicists who specialise in doing that. Quantum systems could form the components of next-generation computers, sensors, and communication devices, which will allow us to process information faster, more precisely, and more securely.

Ultimately, these “quantum technologies” could help us tackle global problems such as climate modelling, drug discovery, and cybersecurity. But development of these technologies is difficult because quantum systems are extremely susceptible to external influences, so my research tries to understand how these environmental effects can be mitigated or perhaps even harnessed to beneficial effect.

As a theoretical physicist, I mostly do this by formulating mathematical models or experimental proposals, and by solving equations to make predictions that could eventually be tested by my experimentalist friends.

What do you do in your spare time?

I love hiking, cycling, and listening to music. I'm also a big fan of computer games although it's becoming increasingly hard to find time to play... I'm still slowly working my way through Elden Ring.