Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology

Abstract 

Since Yves Couder’s discovery in 2005 that droplets may self-propel along the surface of a vibrating liquid bath, numerous studies have shown that these walking droplets exhibit features previously thought to be exclusive to the microscopic, quantum realm. The walking-droplet system represents a macroscopic realization of wave-particle duality, and of a pilot-wave dynamics of the form proposed for microscopic quantum particles by Louis de Broglie in the 1920s. Experimental and theoretical results allow us to explore its potential and limitations as a quantum analog, and so redefine the boundary between classical and quantum. Theoretical descriptions of the hydrodynamic system allow us to forge links with existing quantum pilot-wave theories, and explore a broader class of classical pilot-wave systems. Particular attention is given to illustrating how the non-Markovian droplet dynamics may give rise to features that are taken as evidence of quantum nonlocality in their microscopic counterparts.

About the Speaker 

John Bush is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT. Having completed his BSc in Physics at University of Toronto, he went on to Harvard for his PhD in Geophysics, then the University of Cambridge for postdoctoral research at DAMTP. He joined the faculty of MIT in 1998, was tenured in 2004 and is now the Director of the Applied Mathematics Laboratory. His research began in geophysics, but then shifted towards interfacial phenomena and their applications in biology. For the past 15 years, apart from some pandemic-inspired work on the fluid dynamics of disease transmission, his research has been focused on hydrodynamic quantum analogs.

Host: Professor Ricardo Constante Amores