The Hofstadter Memorial Lectures Monday, April 4, 2011 Professor David Mermin of Cornell University

The Department of Physics is pleased to announce that the annual Robert Hofstadter Memorial Lectures will be given this year by Prof. N. David Mermin, the Horace White Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at Cornell University.  Prof. Mermin's academic interests have ranged among such fields as solid-state physics, statistical physics, low-temperature physics, mathematical crystallography, and quantum computation, and all the while his zeal for explaining complex scientific ideas to a general audience has flourished.  In 2005 Princeton University Press published his book "It's About Time" on relativity for nonscientists who remember just a little algebra and geometry.  Since his retirement in 2006, Prof. Mermin’s book Quantum Computer Science was published by Cambridge University Press.  Mermin is also the co-author, with Neil Ashcroft, of the classic textbook Solid State Physics, first published in 1976 and in the intervening years translated into numerous languages, most recently German, French, and Portuguese, even though it is now pushing 40.  Professor Mermin is a witty and accomplished writer and speaker who is known for his outstanding lectures.

Evening Public Lecture (8:00 PM on Monday, April 4, 2011) Hewlett Teaching Center, 370 Serra Mall, Rm. 200 SPOOKY ACTIONS AT A DISTANCE? Einstein's real complaint about the quantum theory was not that it required God to play dice, but that it failed to "represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance."  I shall use the rhetorical device of a computer-simulated lecture demonstration (a cartoon version of real experiments in Vienna) to explain both the power of Einstein's criticism and the remarkable fact that the "reality" he insisted upon is nevertheless impossible. I will assume no background in quantum physics (or any other physics) but in convincing you of the impossibility of Einstein's vision, I will ask you to engage in a kind of reasoning not unlike a (not very hard) Sudoku puzzle.

Afternoon Colloquium (4:15 PM on Tuesday, April 5, 2011)   Hewlett Teaching Center, 370 Serra Mall, Rm. 201 WHAT HAS QUANTUM MECHANICS TO DO WITH FACTORING? Quantum computer science will be introduced in the context of its most sensational algorithm: the highly efficient factoring routine discovered by Peter Shor. I will emphasize those features of Shor's procedure that puzzled, surprised, and charmed me in the course of my own efforts to better understand how it does its magic. The subject offers some offbeat glimpses of both quantum mechanics and computation. After the Tuesday afternoon colloquium, there will be a celebratory dinner held at the Sheraton Palo Alto, with limited seating.  The dinner will include an after dinner program with entertainment by the Stanford Talisman.  The charge for the dinner is only $40/person, and you must register by March 31, 2011.  Faculty are encouraged to subsidize their students who wish to attend (cost to students is then $20/person.  See invitation flyer for menu.

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Robert Hofstadter, winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize, was one of the principal scientists who developed the Compton Observatory, and a professor at Stanford University for many  years until his death.

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