Public Lecture
Learning Social Phenomena in the Quantum Realm Using AI
Eun-Ah Kim
Cornell University
Wed, Aug 2, 5:30–6:30pm
Social phenomena occur when many individuals interact. Societies develop characters that depend on demographics, population density, and the environment. In the real Quantum Realm (as opposed to that of the Marvel movies), electrons form societies whose character depends on the interaction among constituents and the effect of their environment. The characteristics of electron communities manifest through material properties. While human activities can be easily surveilled, the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, forbids complete surveillance of electrons. In this talk, Kim will discuss how we observe and simulate the fundamentally mystical life of electrons to understand and predict the characters of various electron societies in the real quantum realm. Kim will also talk about how AI tools can help in this challenging endeavor.
About Eun-Ah Kim
Dr. Eun-Ah Kim is a Professor of Physics at Cornell University. She is one of the leading experts in the theory of emergent phenomena in quantum materials and a pioneer in applying machine learning to quantum matter data. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005. She then became a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. She has been at Cornell since 2008. She received an Early Career Award from the National Science Foundation in 2010 and another Early Career Award from the Department of Energy in 2013. She was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2020.
Heinz R. Pagels Public Lecture Series
Heinz R Pagels was a professor of physics at Rockefeller University, president of the New York Academy of Science, a trustee of the Aspen Institute, and a member of the Aspen Center for Physics for twenty years, serving as a participant, officer, and trustee. He was also President of the International League for Human Rights. His work on chaos theory inspired the character of Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park book and movies. A part-time local resident, Professor Pagels died here in a mountaineering accident in 1988. His family and friends instituted the lecture series in his honor because he devoted a substantial part of his life to effective public dissemination of scientific knowledge.
