The Butterfly in the Quantum World

Born in Amritsar, India, Indu Satija grew up in Bombay. After graduating with a Masters degree in physics from Bombay University, she came to New York to get her doctorate in theoretical physics at Columbia University. Currently, she is a physics professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Her recent areas of research include topological insulators, Bose-Einstein condensates, and solitons. She has published numerous scientific articles; this, however, is her first book. Physics is Indu's first love, and the outdoors is her second. She lives in Potomac, a suburb of Washington, DC, with her husband Sushil, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Both Indu and Sushil are marathon runners, and they enjoy hiking and biking as well. They have two children: Rahul, who is a biologist, and Neena, who is an investigative reporter.

Prelude
Kiss precise
The fractal family
Geometry, number theory, and the butterfly: Friendly numbers and kissing circles
The Apollonian-butterfly connection (ABC)
Quasiperiodic patterns and the butterfly
The quantum world
A quantum-mechanical marriage and its unruly child
A different kind of quantization: The quantum Hall effect
Topology and topological invariants: Preamble to the topological aspects of the quantum Hall
The Berry phase and the quantum Hall effect
The kiss precise and precise Quantization
The art of tinkering
The butterfly in the laboratory
Gallery
Divertimento
Gratitude
Poetic
Coda
Selected Bibliography