Physics Colloquia

Goutam Sheet, Dept. of Physical Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER)

Tip-induced Superconductivity

It has been recently observed that certain novel phases of matter, like superconductivity, emerge at mesoscopic interfaces between elemental metals and topologically nontrivial systems such as topological insulators and topological Dirac and Weyl semimetals. In this talk, I will review some of our published results on such mesoscopic superconducting phases with special emphasis on tip-induced superconductivity (TISC). A TISC phase is known to emerge under the point of contact between a sharp tip of a (non-superconducting) normal metal and a material with topologically non-trivial band structure.

There is no Physics colloquium currently scheduled for this date.

Daniel J. Kennefick, University of Arkansas

No Shadow of Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse and General Relativity

This is the centenary year of the celebrated eclipse expeditions of 1919 which confirmed Einstein's theory of General Relativity. In recent decades, the story of these expeditions has focused on Arthur Stanley Eddington and the question of his alleged bias in favor of Einstein’s theory. It has been alleged that Eddington threw out data which did not favor Einstein’s theory.