A theme prevalent throughout condensed matter physics is that microscopic fluctuations manifest as macroscopic behaviors. GdCo, for instance, exhibits the �magnetocaloric effect�, whereby the application of a magnetic field induces temperature changes in certain alloys, currently subject to ongoing research by General Electric. The Heisenberg Spin Hamiltonian is an operator used to calculate the total energy of a magnetic system, given matrices which represent �spin� magnetic moments of constituent, interacting atoms within a lattice.

Although I began studying physics at school in the 7th grade, my interest in the subject came largely from reading popular science books. One such book was called Einstein for Everyone; a slim volume, it provided a non-technical rundown of all of the major areas in modern physics, from atomic physics all the way up' to cosmology. I was particularly intrigued with the book's description of quantum mechanics --- the thought of Schrodinger’s cat’ being both alive and dead simultaneously was fascinating to me, as was the notion that measuring something could change the outcome … In quantum mechanics, the state of a system can be fully represented by its wave function.