Black holes have the remarkable property of irreversibility: if you fall into a black hole you can't get out (classically). This immediately suggested a connection with the other famous irreversibility in physics: the law of increase of entropy. Since the 70s, this connection between black holes and thermodynamic systems has been fleshed out in increasing detail and has lead to surprising conclusions. Professor Sean Hartnoll of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics will give an introduction to a recent body of work showing how black holes can in fact be used to shed light on exotic materials of interest in condensed matter physics, including the still-not-understood high temperature superconductors.
This is lecture 2 of a 2-part lecture series given by Prof. Sean Hartnoll from the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics.