![]() ![]() Conductivity is the ability of a system to transport currents from one end to another. There are a lot of quantities in physics which are emergent. If something is emergent, it does not even make sense to speak about it for individual elements of the system. Something is emergent if it comes about from the collective behavior of many constituents of a system, be that people or atoms. Quasi-particles are emergent from the interactions of many fundamental particles.Īnd this is really the most relevant property of emergence. This is why in condensed matter systems one can have “quasi-particles” which behave like particles – with quantum properties and wave-behavior and all that – but are actually a collective that moves together. Sound waves are really just a simple, collective description for atoms in a gas that move periodically and so create a propagating mode.īut we know that in quantum mechanics waves are also particles and the other way round. ![]() The simplest example of this are sound waves. Indeed, something very similar happens in many condensed-matter systems, where the interactions between atomic constituents gives rise to certain types of collective behavior. It only becomes possible because of the interaction between people and their neighbors. ![]() A good example is the “La ola” wave that you sometimes see in the audience of sporting events. So, today I want to explain what physicists mean by emergence, which is also the way that the expression is often, but not always, used by philosophers.Įmergent broadly speaking refers to novel types of behavior in systems with many interacting constituents. But emerging, emergent, and emergence are also technical terms. The word “emerging” is often used colloquially to mean something like “giving rise to” or “becoming apparent”. ![]()
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