Professor Paul Strange
Profile
Professor of Physics
Office: Room 201, Ingram Building
Telephone: (01227) 823321
Fax: 01227 827558
Email: p.strange@kent.ac.uk
Professional Appointments
- Head of Physical Sciences
Biography
Paul graduated from the University of London in 1977 and went on to Lancaster University to carry out Ph.D research, producing a thesis entitled "Electrons in the Heavy rare Earth Metals". This was followed by a Postdoctoral position associated with Collaborative Computer Project 9 on the electronic structure of complex materials based at Bristol University and an independent SERC (now EPSRC) fellowship to pursue research on relativistic effects in materials.
Following a brief period as a Research fellow at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory he was appointed to a lectureship at Keele University in 1989. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 1993 and Professor of Theoretical Physics in 2001.
In 2005 Paul moved to the University of Kent to become Head of the School of Physical Sciences.
Paul is a member of the College of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and has been on the organising committees of a number of major conferences. From December 2000 to December 2006 he was secretary of the condensed matter division of the Institute of Physics and is currently the Institutes representative on the Materials Research Forum of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is on the steering panel of CCP9 and is also on the Peer Review Panel for the XMAS beamline at the European Synchrotron in Grenoble. He also holds an honorary scientist position at Daresbury Laboratory.
Research Interests
My research abilities centre on Theoretical and Computational Physics. One of my principal areas of research involves investigating the properties of materials using first principles techniques. By this we mean that the materials properties are calculated from the atomic numbers of the constituent elements and faith in quantum theory with no other input. The only approximations made are those that are necessary to make the calculation tractable. Such work relies heavily on the use of high powered computers. A secondary interest is in mathematical physics. Within these themes I have several topics on which I have done a lot of work.
Relativistic Effects in Solids.
Contrary to popular belief Einstein’s theory of relativity plays a role in many everyday phenomena. A unification of quantum theory and relativity is necessary to understand materials properties such as the dependence of the reflection of light on its polarisation and the position of the north and south poles of a magnet. My work takes this one step further to ask (and attempt to answer) what the dependence of the reflection/absorption of light as a function of energy and polarisation tells us about the material at the atomic level.
Rare Earth Materials
The rare earth metals are a series of fourteen elements (atomic numbers 58 to 71) that have some extraordinary properties such as exotic forms of magnetism, unusual superconductivity, fluctuating charges on the atoms in the solid and some of their compounds (called heavy fermions) have the extraordinary property that it takes thousands of times more energy to raise their temperature by one degree than standard metals like copper. Gaining a full understanding of such materials is a huge challenge to theoretical physics. Working with colleagues I have developed techniques that enable us to calculate and predict some of these properties using first principles that are consistent with Einstein’s relativity.
SuperAtoms
Atoms can be viewed as positively charged nuclei with electrons orbiting round them. It has been postulated that for some small clusters of atoms electrons can be removed from the individual atoms and orbit the whole cluster, treating it as if it is a nucleus. Such clusters have been termed superatoms. If such clusters exist they open up a whole new class of possible materials which will have very unusual and exotic properties. We are using first principles calculations to search for likely candidate clusters for superatomic behaviour and to investigate what factors determine whether atoms form a standard or a superatomic cluster and to investigate the physical properties of such clusters.
Quantum Coherence
The addition of many discrete waves with well-defined phase relations, such as the field near diffraction gratings or time-dependent quantum mechanics of periodic waves frequently yields striking interference phenomena. In particular elaborate quantum carpet-like structures as a function of space (Talbot effect) or time (quantum revivals) occur. We have recently examined relativistic extensions of this theory and currently we are considering various generalisations of such phenomena.
Other Topics
Other topics in which I take a professional interest include Atmospheric Optics and Analytic Number Theory (the properties of numbers). I am the author of a book entitled “Relativistic Quantum Mechanics: with applications in atomic and condensed matter physics” published by Cambridge University Press.
Publications
P. Strange, Relativistic Quantum Revivals, Physical Review Letters 104, 120403, (4pp), (2010).
L. Bouchenoire, A. Mirone, S. D. Brown, P. Strange, T Wood, P. Thompson, D.
Fort and J. Fernandez-Rodriguez, E1 and E2 contributions to the L3 resonance
line shape in antiferromagnetic Holmium, New Journal of Physics, 11, 123011 1-19
(2009).
S. D. Brown, P. Strange, L. Bouchenoire, B. Zarychta, P. Thompson, D. Mannix,
S. J. Stockton, M. Horne, E. Arola, Z. Szotek, W. M. Temmerman and D. Fort,
Brown et. al. Reply Physical Review Letters 102, 129702, (2009).
R. Varns and P. Strange, Stability of Gold Atoms and Dimers Adsorbed on Graphene,
J. Phys. Cond. Mat. , 20, 225005 (8 pages), (2008).
C. Aerts and P. Strange. Relativistic Theory of Transport in a normal/superconducting
microconstriction. J. Phys. Cond. Mat. 20, 215225, (13pp) (2008).
Teaching
- PH602 - Problem Solving
- PH704 - Quantum Mechanics
- Head of Department
I tend to teach at the more theoretical/mathematical end of Physics and have delivered modules in quantum mechanics at all levels, mathematics, electromagnetism, relativity, condensed matter physics. At present I teach quantum mechanics to second year students and problem solving to the final year. I also supervise undergraduate projects.
Science Quotations
Doris Lessing
I have most bitterly regretted that I didn't study physics when I was at school, because it is the key to the most exciting research and discoveries of our time, and physicists are the adventurers and the risk takers. Young people who study physics can expect to find themselves at the frontier of human thought.
Bertrand Russell
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
James Clerk Maxwell
Happy is the man who can recognise in the work of today a connected portion of the work of eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises, because the present is given him for a possession.
Charles Mees(Research director, Kodak)
The best person to decide what research shall be done is the one doing the research. The next best is the head of the department. After that you leave the field of best persons and meet increasingly worse groups. The first of these is the research director, who is probably wrong more than half the time. Then comes a committee which is wrong most of the time. Finally there is a committee of company vice-presidents, which is wrong all the time.
Henrik Ibsen
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
Max Planck
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out.
Thomas Browne (1605-82)
No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.
The Prophet Muhammed
Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.
The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.
Albert Einstein
Physics should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. (attributed; after hearing a philosopher lecturing on relativity)
Science is a wonderful thing if one doesn’t have to earn one’s living at it.
Wernher von Braun
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
George Porter
Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century? I am afraid that it is.
Hippocrates (460-377BC)
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.
Martin Luther King
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
Blaise Egan
Knowledge is boring, it’s what you don’t know that’s not boring.
Unattributed
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
Neils Bohr
Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single word
Richard Feynman
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Claude Bernard
The doubter is a true man of science; he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.
Frank Wilczek
In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.
John Beddington
Those who invest in science invest in the future, those who cut science hope for the best.
Thomas Watson (Chairman of IBM) in 1943
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers
Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1949
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons
Attributed to the Business Books Editor, prentice-Hall 1957
I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year
Ken Olson (President of DEC) in 1977
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their own home
Bill Gates in 1981
640K ought to be enough for anyone
Laws of Science
- Discoveries are rarely attributed to the right person. (Arnold's Law)
- Nothing is ever discovered for the first time. (Michael Berry)
- Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it. (Whitehead’s Law)
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. (Clark’s 1st Law)
- The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible. (Clark’s 2nd Law)
- Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. (Clark’s 3rd Law)
- If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. (Finagles 1st Law)
- No matter what the experiment's result, there will always be someone eager to: (a) misinterpret it. (b) fake it. or (c) believe it supports his own pet theory. (Finagle’s 2nd Law).
- In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake. (Finagle’s 3rd Law).
- Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. (Finagle’s 4th Law)
- A few months in the laboratory can save a few hours in the library. (Westheimer’s Law)
- No experiment is reproducible. (Wyszowski’s Law)
- Whenever a system becomes completely defined, someone discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. (Brooke’s Law).
- An object in motion will be heading in the wrong direction. (Gerrold’s 1st Law)
- An object at rest will be in the wrong place. (Gerrold’s 2nd Law)
- 2 is not equal to 3 - not even for very large values of 2. (Grable’s Law)
- Variables won’t, constants aren’t. (Osborn’s Law)