🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BxA2GC.6yE@wsrcc.com> alison@wsrcc.com (Alison Chaiken) writes:

>As far as the theory of the electron goes, QED has had
>no impact on solid-state physics whatsoever.  I have been a
>solid-state physicist for 10 years, and I have never never seen or
>heard a single reference to QED corrections to electron energy levels.

That's nice to hear from a real solid state physicist - I'd
occaisionally wondered. 

>Having said all that, the theories of broken symmetry and elementary
>excitations (Goldstone bosons) in solid-state physics have been heavily
>influenced by particle theories.  Here solid-state is using the
>_concepts_ of field theory, not the results!  My understanding is that
>particle theories have been in turn influenced by solid-state theories
>(e.g., non-perturbative field theories are greatly influenced by the
>BCS theory of superconductivity).

Yes, here there seems to be a very nice interplay.  It's one of the few
things that keeps physicists talking to each other, the mathematical
analogies between condensed matter physics and field theory.  All sorts
of tricks, like the ones you mention and also renormalization group
methods, solitons and instantons, etc., show up in both subjects.
Here's to the unity of nature!