Nakul S. Deshpande

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Nakul Deshpande is a postdoctoral research scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he works within at the interface of geomorphology and soft-matter physics. He earned his Ph.D. in Earth & Environmental Science from the University of Pennsylvania, where his research focused on the mechanics of slow, granular deformation in natural landscapes.

His work integrates field observations, physical modeling, and laboratory experiments to better understand the dynamics of hillslope creep and the emergent behavior of disordered materials in geomorphic contexts. His dissertation research culminated in a study published in Nature Communications titled “The Perpetual Fragility of Creeping Hillslopes,” which was subsequently featured in The New York Times.

Deshpande’s broader research interests lie in the material physics of landscapes—how the flow and failure of earth materials shape terrain over time. His interdisciplinary approach reflects a commitment to bridging Earth science with physical theory, especially in domains where classical models of stability and failure fall short.

selected publications

PhysRev

Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?

A. Einstein^*†, B. Podolsky^*, and N. Rosen^*

Phys. Rev., New Jersey. More Information can be found here , May 1935

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In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system. In quantum mechanics in the case of two physical quantities described by non-commuting operators, the knowledge of one precludes the knowledge of the other. Then either (1) the description of reality given by the wave function in quantum mechanics is not complete or (2) these two quantities cannot have simultaneous reality. Consideration of the problem of making predictions concerning a system on the basis of measurements made on another system that had previously interacted with it leads to the result that if (1) is false then (2) is also false. One is thus led to conclude that the description of reality as given by a wave function is not complete.