Three physicists from COPE and SMP have reported the discovery of a new ratio that takes the same predicted value in a wide range of strongly correlated materials []. Universal ratios play a key role in understanding complex emergent physics as they suggest that the same physics is at play in very different materials. The new ratio discovery by Anthony Jacko, John Fjaerestad and Ben Powell, relates the measured temperature dependence of a metal resistivity to that of its heat capacity. This is important because the former quantity tells us about how the electrons in the metal interact with one another, while the latter tells us about how these interactions affect the behaviour of electrons in a metal.

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http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nphys1249.html