Today we are saying a fond farewell to Dr Chris Hooley who is leaving St. Andrews for new pastures in Dresden, Germany.

Exactly how I feel at 3 am with an assignment on superposition due in 5 hours.

One famous example is twisted graphene. Graphene is a material made of carbon where the atoms arranged themselves in a periodic hexagonal pattern of period, L. Layering two sheets of graphene with a twist of angle, d, leads to a pattern of hexagons with a period L/d (4/)

This leads to moire pattern, two periodic patterns with some offset between them that creates a new periodic pattern. For example you can put sets of concentric circles to make the pattern shown below (3/7)

Time for an ancient Greek paradox with a quantum twist! Suppose our quirky mascot decides to do a spot of archery. We observe this practice, and decide to set up a camera to periodically take photos of the arrow as it travels from the bow to the target.

He was an expert in superfluid liquid helium, and introduced a kind of quantum turbulence that still bears his name. He was also super-modest: he once finished part of a paper with "we emphasize that our own discussion of this effect is speculative and quite possibly wrong" (3/3)

Eager not to forget them, he carved their defining equation, i²=j²=k²=ijk=-1, on the side of Broom bridge. Now, for us ordinary mortals that's called vandalism, but for geniuses like Hamilton it's "inspiration". Apparently. (5/5)

..... only you'd probably have to have infinite mass, or a police-box or something, to travel on one. We can but hope. In the meantime, beam me up Scotty! (3/3)

Two years of QQ.

Quirky Quantuplets turns 2 this week whilst the CDT has been going for over 4 years! Things have gotten larger since we started, and certainly cooler 😎.