General Physics Colloquium, Professor Andrea Liu, University of Pennsylvania - Cooper Lecture

Title:  Tunable Matter

Host:  Veit Elser

Abstract:  In 1972 Phil Andersen articulated the motto of condensed matter physics as “More is different.” However, for most condensed matter systems many more is quite similar to more. Here I argue for a class of condensed matter, “tunable matter," in which many more is more different—the behaviors of many more and more can be quite different. The ultimate example of tunable matter is the brain, whose cognitive capabilities increase as size increases from 302 neurons (C. Elegans) to a million neurons (honeybees) to 100 billion neurons (humans). I propose that tunable matter provides a unifying conceptual framework for understanding not only a wide range of living systems responsible for function, but also a route towards developing non-biological systems capable of being tuned to develop special collective behaviors at scale.