Anticipations of the Geometric Phase

DEC 01, 1990

The notion that a quantum system’s wovefunction may not return to its original phase after its parameters cycle slowly around a circuit had many precursors—in polarized light, radio waves, molecules, matrices and curved surfaces.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881219

Michael Berry

In science we like to emphasize the novelty and originality of our ideas. This is harmless enough, provided it does not blind us to the fact that concepts rarely arise out of nowhere. There is always a historical context, in which isolated precursors of the idea have already appeared. What we call “discovery” sometimes looks, in retrospect, more like emergence into the air from subterranean intellectual currents.

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More about the authors

Michael Berry, University of Bristol, Bristol, England.