Fine electronic structureIn solid state physics and physical chemistry, the fine electronic structure of a solid are the features of the electronic bands induced by intrinsic interactions between charge carriers. Valence and conduction bands split slightly compared to the difference between the various bands. Some mechanisms that allow it are angular momentum couplings, spin-orbit coupling, lattice distortions (Jahn–Teller effect), and other interactions described by crystal field theory.
Spontaneous symmetry breakingSpontaneous symmetry breaking is a spontaneous process of symmetry breaking, by which a physical system in a symmetric state spontaneously ends up in an asymmetric state. In particular, it can describe systems where the equations of motion or the Lagrangian obey symmetries, but the lowest-energy vacuum solutions do not exhibit that same symmetry. When the system goes to one of those vacuum solutions, the symmetry is broken for perturbations around that vacuum even though the entire Lagrangian retains that symmetry.
Socialist calculation debateThe socialist calculation debate, sometimes known as the economic calculation debate, was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation given the absence of the law of value, money, financial prices for capital goods and private ownership of the means of production. More specifically, the debate was centered on the application of economic planning for the allocation of the means of production as a substitute for capital markets and whether or not such an arrangement would be superior to capitalism in terms of efficiency and productivity.
Eugene ParkerEugene Newman Parker (June 10, 1927 – March 15, 2022) was an American solar and plasma physicist. In the 1950s he proposed the existence of the solar wind and that the magnetic field in the outer Solar System would be in the shape of a Parker spiral, predictions that were later confirmed by spacecraft measurements. In 1987, Parker proposed the existence of nanoflares, a leading candidate to explain the coronal heating problem. Parker obtained his PhD from Caltech and spent four years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah.
