Splash Biography

How does entropy relate to cleaning your room? How many slaps does it take to cook a chicken? In this course, we provide an introduction to the central concepts and historical roots of thermal and statistical physics. Starting with a phenomenological discussion of the laws of thermodynamics, and building towards a mesoscopic derivation of these laws from the perspective of modern statistical mechanics, we hope to demonstrate why thermal and statistical physics are such fascinating and challenging scientific fields of study.

Last year, Google made a landmark announcement that they had achieved "quantum supremacy," but what exactly does this mean? In this class, we'll give an introduction to what quantum computing and why Google's announcement was such a big deal! We'll cover some basic differences between classical and quantum computing and discuss limitations in the hardware that are keeping quantum computers stuck in the laboratory.