与Ali Ghorashi ' 15一起探索凝聚态理论的世界

打开立体声接收器、游戏系统或台式电脑的电源. 等几分钟，然后把你的手放在上面的面板上. 感受温暖? 那是废热，是低效导电的结果. 将这种影响乘以数十亿的居民, 商业, and industrial devices and machines in use around the world and you’ll start to get a sense of how much generated power is lost as heat—and the resulting effect of that waste heat on global warming. 

但别担心. 变革即将到来，15岁的Ali Ghorashi是负责此案的团队的一员. 

阿里在一个充满科学的家庭长大. As an elementary school student, he remembers spending hours poring over the latest issue of 科普 杂志. 他回忆道:“在那个年龄，我不能理解很多材料。. “但我确实很感兴趣.随着年龄的增长，阿里的兴趣越来越浓厚. He was also starting to learn more about—and appreciate—his father’s working life as a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Southern Maine. 

作为新巴黎人注册网站高中的九年级新生, 四年后，阿里开始沉浸在爵士乐中, 他的毕业项目将集中在爵士乐曲的转录上。. 但科学很快成为他学校生活的中心. 他在大一的时候就参加了科学竞赛, 这一年，球队出人意料地在州比赛中获得了第二名. “这是韦恩弗莱特科学激动人心时刻的开始,科学老师温迪·柯蒂斯回忆道. “这群孩子被点燃了，准备迎接更多.” 

阿里在大一的时候也加入了科学奥林匹克队. Whether you were interested in hands-on activities like building robot arms or in the more abstract work found in the form of challenging tests, 在这些比赛中，每个人都有自己的东西. 阿里在大二时帮助球队获得了州冠军. The squad went on to compete at the national level three times during Ali’s years in the 上学校. 

阿里与14岁的索菲·本森合作参加了“MEST up”,，这是一个以stem为主题的电视节目，在缅因州播出了几年. 这对搭档在阿里大三时赢得了比赛. “新巴黎人注册网站开始看到，如果新巴黎人注册网站愿意投入时间, 可能会有显著的结果,他回忆道. “这是我在Waynflete工作期间的一大收获.” 

在他高中的这些年里, 老师们鼓励阿里去尝试和冒险. “新巴黎人注册网站做了很多实验, 那是因为新巴黎人注册网站想看看会发生什么,他说. “We were always shooting for the highest possible outcome, even if things didn’t always pan out. We 想要冒险而不是保守行事.” Teacher Wendy Curtis recalls Ali firing rocket motor-propelled cars across labs tables and attempting to light a fluorescent bulb with a Van de Graaff generator. Her recollection of him is captured with a simple description: he was an experimentalist.

随着大学申请程序的开始, 阿里被要求在数学和物理这两条道路中任选其一. The deciding factor was a series of conversations he had with physics professors at the University of Pennsylvania. “All the physicists I talked to seemed to approach problems in a way that was more natural for me than mathematics,他说. 我后来在他读本科的时候才知道, my advisor had been intrigued by the same kinds of questions that were on my mind at the time.”

Ali quickly immersed himself in research at Penn—work that he hoped would help him determine which field of physics to specialize in. He joined teams that were developing carbon nanotubes to detect cancer and worked on materials synthesis projects. 而阿里最终决定研究理论物理, he also wanted to ensure that his future research would still be tied to material science and chemistry. “我希望我的工作在实验上是可行的，”他说. “我希望我能在实验室里看到实际的结果.”

In 2018, Ali was one of five Penn students selected to receive the Roy and Diana Vagelos Challenge Award, 谁的目标是“奖励最优秀的人”, 动机, 高级理科生, 挑战他们，让他们从自己身上得到最大的收获.在他大四的时候，他获得了威廉E. 斯蒂芬斯物理系最佳本科毕业生奖. 

阿里还获得了美国国家科学基金会的研究奖学金. He credits Waynflete’s emphasis on writing across the curriculum for his success with this application. “It’s critical to be able to communicate your ideas in written form to the individuals who make funding decisions,他说. “My writing experience at Waynflete was instrumental in helping me submit a convincing application.”

感受到学术的召唤, 阿里开始考虑可以攻读博士学位的学校. 虽然哈佛很想让他加入他们的项目, 他选择了麻省理工学院, drawn by the close working ties between that school and the University of Pennsylvania. “Both institutions were working on just the kinds of problems that I’m interested in,” says Ali. (阿里在麻省理工学院的博士导师有, 事实上, 他在宾夕法尼亚大学和阿里的前顾问一起完成了自己的博士学位.) 

阿里目前的研究重点是凝聚态理论, 这一领域近年来得到了显著的扩展. Condensed matter systems work with huge numbers of particles whose properties are difficult to measure in labs, such as the transition that materials undergo due to temperature changes (transforming from solids to liquids or from a superconducting to a nonsuperconducting state, 例如). 导电率, 哪一个通常比较容易测量, 用特定的材料在理论上很难预测吗. Biological condensed matter studies may include predicting how molecules diffuse in liquid.

这些问题有大量的“自由度”.” The challenge is to know which degrees of freedom can be disregarded in the quest to solve problems in a reasonable time frame. 从历史上看, these simplifications have helped researchers successfully predict condensed matter phenomena. But Ali has recently been involved with research that reintroduces previously disregarded degrees of freedom to more accurately study condensed matter behavior.

实际意义

Ali is specifically interested in learning why some materials are superconductors—that is, they conduct electrical current with virtually zero resistance at high temperatures. He is also seeking to learn why some materials strongly react nonlinearly with electric fields. “虽然新巴黎人注册网站观察到了这些行为，但新巴黎人注册网站没有 有理论来解释它们，”他说. “现在是一个激动人心的时刻，许多实验正在进行中. Our goal is to move as much theory as we can from the ‘no certainty’ bucket to the ‘near certainty’ bucket.”

阿里的研究在能源消耗领域具有实际意义. Much of the energy consumed by modern electronic devices is lost unnecessarily as heat. If materials can be engineered to conduct electricity more efficiently, less energy is lost. 更高效的电子设备意味着能源生产需求的减少, 哪一种可能对气候变化产生积极影响.

阿里也在从事与量子计算相关的项目, 快速从理论到实际设计的一个领域. Quantum computers make calculations using algorithms that would take far too long to run on classical computers. Ali’s team is helping to create an architecture upon which quantum computer researchers can build their devices. 他说:“这项工作将打开计算可能性的全新领域。.

阿里最近开始适应他在剑桥的新社区. Taking a moment to reflect on his time at Waynflete and the decisions that led him to where he is today, 他又回到了冒险的概念上. 在他的本科阶段, Ali frequently switched between research groups—in spite of risk that these changes might look bad on his resume or graduate school applications. “Students often worry that they need to figure out that ‘one cohesive goal’ in their undergraduate years, 如果没有它, 他们将受到处罚. No one will want to hire them, and they won’t be accepted to graduate schools,他说. “这不是真的. 作为一名大学生就是要弄清楚你想做什么. It’s so much better to try out different things in your teens and twenties than it is to get stuck prematurely in something. Young people shouldn’t feel pressure to know with certainty what they want to do until they’ve done some exploring.”