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Fisher, Matthew P. A., 1960-
Oral history interview with Matthew Fisher, 2021 January 12.
Interview with Matthew Fisher, professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara. Fisher recounts his early childhood in London as the son of a prominent physicist, and his upbringing in Ithaca where his father was on the physics faculty. He discusses his undergraduate experience at Cornell, where he started in engineering but gravitated toward physics, and he reflects on a conversation with a graduate student, which more than any influene from his father or his brother, also a prominent physicist sparked his interest. Fisher describes his initial graduate work at MIT, where he focused on experimental condensed matter research in the lab of Bob Birgeneau, before he transferred to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana to re-focus on condensed matter theory, with a special interest in quantum mechanics under the direction of Tony Leggett. He explains the mental health issues he began to suffer from in graduate school, which extended into his postdoctoral, and then full time, work at IBM, until a psychiatrist prescribed him medication that essentially restored him to a state of mental health. Fisher describes the opportunities leading to his faculty appointment at UC Santa Barbara, and he discusses his newfound interests in high temperature superconductors, the fractional quantum Hall effect, and the localization of bosons. He discusses his ongoing interest in quantum mechanics, quantum spin liquids and quantum phase transitions, and he describes his long term collaboration with Charlie Kane. Fisher explains the singular advances Phil Anderson made to the field, and what supercomputing has allowed in the last twenty years that was not possible in the previous twenty years. He connects his mental health challenges with his recent interests in the concept of a quantum mind, or the possibility that the brain operates quantum mechanically. Fisher stresses that the field is nascent and that it is too early to tell if his preliminary ideas will be substantiated, and why a greater understanding of both evolution and the nature of consciousness is crucial to developing of this path of inquiry. He explains the implications of the notion of free will if the brain operates according to quantum processes, and he describes how this research may bear out experimentally.
Matthew Fisher is a Professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He completed his graduate studies at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a postdoctoral position at IBM, where he continued to work before joining the faculty at UC Santa Barbara. In 2015, Fisher was awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize.
Anderson, P. W. (Philip W.), 1923-
Birgeneau, Robert J. (Robert Joseph), 1942-
Fisher, Matthew P. A., 1960-
Kane, Charles
Leggett, A. J. (Anthony J.)
International Business Machines Corporation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, Santa Barbara.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Bosons.
Condensed matter. fast
High temperature superconductors.
Neurosciences
Quantum Hall effect.
Quantum theory
Supercomputers
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Zierler, David, 1979- interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA
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