Here I've collected some old projects I've worked on; largely previous pieces of coursework that I put a lot work into:
- Homotopy in Condensed Matter: it turns out ideas from homotopy theory, a type of topology, can be used to understand the interactions of impurities in crystals (or other objects with symmetries). The theory is really pretty, and I wrote a brief summary of it for a class back when I was a condensed matter physicist at Harvard. It is based on this excellent review by Mermin, that is probably more worthwhile reading.
- Differential Dynamic Microscopy: say you have a mixture of solid particles in a fluid. By shining light at the mixture and looking at the behaviour of the diffraction patterns you can infer properties of the particles that would not otherwise be obvious. I did a piece of experimental coursework on this when I was a physics undergrad at Cambridge and really enjoyed it!
- Superconducting Qubits: I did a literature review on the state of the art in superconducting qubits in 2018, while finishing my physics undergrad. Superconducting qubits were one of the key contenders for becoming the basis of quantum computing, I haven't been following the development since so they may have flopped, but I was impressed! At one stage I thought it was super cool and wanted to spend my life working on quantum computers, we'll see if I made the right decision there...
