The exotic theory of everything could shed light on the behaviour of real materials, thanks to an unexpected mathematical connection with condensed-atter physics

On one side,” says Jan Zaanen, “you have this refined, almost other-worldly intellectual — the perfectionist obsessed with detail, barely interested in earthly pleasures. On the other, you have the loud, boisterous, sometimes aggressive, business-savvy character who knows how to get his hands dirty.”

It might almost be a description of the misfit roommates known on stage, screen and television as The Odd Couple.

But Zaanen, a condensedmatter physicist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, is actually describing the pairing of two groups of scientists: string theorists, who spend their days pursuing a rarefied, highly mathematical ‘theory of everything’, and his own colleagues — a considerably more grounded bunch who prefer to focus on how real-world materials behave in the laboratory……

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