Waves that drive global weather patterns finally explained, thanks to inspiration from bagel-shaped quantum matter

They are about as far apart as two things in

a

science can be: a type of ocean wave that helps drive the El Niño climate cycle, and quantum materials that, thanks to a particularly strange bit of physics, have insulating interiors and conduct current along their surface. Yet, in a remarkable case of lateral thinking, the two disparate phenomena can be explained with the same topological mathematics of shapes with holes in them, a team of physicists reports.



“I’ve been trying to make the case that these two fields really are very closely connected,” says Brad Marston, a physicist at Brown University who led the study. In addition to explaining why ocean and atmospheric waves can become trapped at the equator, the study also suggests that condensed matter physics—the study of liquids and solids, such as the semiconductors that make up computer chips—and earth science could cross-pollinate in other ways, such as using topology to explain waves on other planets and moons, or in astrophysical disks of gas and dust.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/waves-drive-global-weather-patterns-finally-explained-thanks-inspiration-bagel-shaped