Appreciating Tony Leggett (1938-2026)

08 Mar 2026 in Blog

Sir Anthony James Leggett. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

Sir Anthony James Leggett, Nobel laureate and longtime professor of condensed matter physics at U. Illinois, passed away a few days ago. I’m sure we will hear from others who are much more qualified to directly speak about Tony’s work and legacy. Here I instead offer a view from the relative sidelines, which might by its distance say something of the size of his contributions to fields of quantum physics.

What makes quantum physics special?

04 Oct 2025 in Blog

A brief tour through eighty years of answers (photo credit: one of the most popular images used to abstractly convey quantum physics. original author unknown)

Quantum physics is, at least by reputation, famously strange, counter-intuitive, and hard to understand. A quick internet search will turn up an endless scroll of quotes by eminent physicists saying this, so it must be true.

What is a phase of matter?

22 Feb 2025 in Blog

And why do you keep hearing that we’ve discovered a new one?

If you follow scientific announcements, there is a flavor of article that you’ve probably seen a few times: “Physicists discover/create a new phase/state of matter”. Most recently, Microsoft made such an announcement related to their quantum computing work: