A Century of Quantum Mechanics
In October 2011 we celebrated the centenary of the Solvay conferences that played a unique and important role in the development of twentieth century physics, most notably in the quantum revolution whose birth overlapped the initiation of these meeti....
More details | Watch nowA New Kilogram in 2018: The Biggest Revolution in Metrology Since the French Revolution
Metrology - the science of measurements - is responsible for the international uniformity and precision in standards. Today, the seven units for meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela of our international system of units (SI units....
More details | Watch nowCold Atomic Gases: the Intersection of Condensed Matter and Atomic Physics
During the past decade laser cooling and evaporative cooling of atoms have produced quantum degenerate gases both of bosons (Bose-Einstein condensates) and of fermions (gases with temperatures below the Fermi temperature). Such gases can provide ana....
More details | Watch nowControlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary
The founders of quantum theory assumed in 'thought experiments' that they were manipulating isolated quantum systems, obeying the counterintuitive laws which they had just discovered. Technological advances have recently turned these virtual experi....
More details | Watch nowCosmic Rays: the Most Energetic Particles in the Universe
Astrophysical objects are able to accelerate atomic nuclei to energies 10^7 times more than man made accelerators such as LHC. _Particles arrive at earth from space with energies as great as 50 joules, a macroscopic energy in a microscopic particle.....
More details | Watch nowCreating Artificial Magnetic Fields to Act on Neutral Atoms
Cold, quantum degenerate gases of neutral atoms have proved to be useful in simulating the behavior of quantum systems like electrons in solids. For example, cold atoms moving in optical lattices (periodic potentials created by interfering laser be....
More details | Watch nowDiscovery of Superconducting Tunneling
I had the great fortune to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics for using electron tunneling to measure the energy gap in superconductors. In this talk I will recollect some of the events that led to this discovery and hopefully I will be able to convey....
More details | Watch nowDiscovery of the Higgs Particle
Recently the Higgs particle has been discovered at CERN. This particle was theoretically predicted. The historical development of field theory, leading to this prediction will be discussed.
More details | Watch nowFive Decades of Lasers, Six Decades of Progress, and a Proposed Space Experiment to test Einstein’s Assumptions
Even though this is the 51st year of the Laser, progress in its control and application in precision measurements is still accelerating. The Optical Frequency Comb technology exploded in 1999-2000 from the synthesis of advances in independent field....
More details | Watch nowFrom Millisecond to Attosecond Laser Pulses
A historical overview is presented of the experimental development of ever shorter laser pulses from 1960 to the present. Already in the early sixties nanosecond pulses were achieved and the entry into the picosecond domain was reached in the late s....
More details | Watch nowFrom Spinwaves to Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) and Beyond
Standing spinwaves and surface waves in layered magnetic structures can be used for the detection and quantitative evaluation of interlayer exchange coupling (IEC). Using this method antiferromagnetic IEC has been found in Fe/Cr/Fe layered structure....
More details | Watch nowFrontiers of Physics
David discusses a few of the questions facing fundamental physics that might be answered before the 100th Lindau meeting in 2050.
More details | Watch nowFuture Accelerators for Astro-Particle Physics
One of the most remarkable results of astro-particle Physics has been the success of the Standard Model, recently culminated in the discovery of the Higgs particle (Ho). However, the Ho is observable only in few channels at the LHC, in the presence o....
More details | Watch nowLaser Spectroscopy of Hydrogen
The simple Balmer spectrum of atomic hydrogen has provided the Rosetta stone for deciphering the strange laws of quantum physics during the early 20th century. Four decades ago, Doppler-free laser spectroscopy opened a new chapter in the exploratio....
More details | Watch nowLight Quanta and Their Idiosyncrasies
Maxwell's electromagnetic theory (now 150 years old) seemed in its comprehensive way to be capable of answering all of the questions one might ever pose about the theory of light. But that spell was broken in 1900 by Planck's discovery that light bea....
More details | Watch nowMapping the Universe and Its History
Using our most advanced techniques and instruments we sift through study the cosmic microwave background as a relic of the early universe to understand the events surrounding the birth and subsequent development of the Universe. A precision inspect....
More details | Watch nowModel Synthesis for Ceramics: Superconductors, Magnets and Others
The discovery of superconductivity in hole doped La2CuO4 was motivated by the interest to find this phenomenon in an oxide. After the discovery near 35 K, copper oxides with transition temperatures of up to 131 K at normal pressure were found, i.e.....
More details | Watch nowNeutrinos: a Golden Field for Astroparticle Physics
Neutrinos have been the origin of an impressive number of ‘surprises’. We know that neutrinos have tiny masses and that oscillations are occurring spontaneously between neutrino species. But additional new discoveries may be ahead of us and t....
More details | Watch nowOptical Microscopy – the Resolution Revolution
Throughout the 20th century it was widely accepted that a light microscope relying on conventional optical lenses cannot discern details that are much finer than about half the wavelength of light (200-400 nm), due to diffraction. However, in the 199....
More details | Watch nowPowering the Future
Some seeds of what to do in the climate/energy controversy are contained in what will be. In this talk I shall ask everyone to jump over contemporary politics and make a mental journey to a time, several centuries from now, when nobody uses carbon-....
More details | Watch nowQuantum Information: a Scientific and Technological Revolution for the 21st Century
Two of the great scientific and technical revolutions of the 20th century were the discovery of the quantum nature of the submicroscopic world, and the advent of information science and engineering. Both of these have had a profound effect not only o....
More details | Watch nowRole of Cortical Noise in Vision
Our brains are always generating electrical signals, even if we close our eyes, plug our ears, and lie in a warm bath. These signals are called cortical noise because they don't correlate with any sensation or thought of which we are aware. I will ....
More details | Watch nowScience with Combs of Light
The spectrum of a frequency comb, commonly generated by a mode-locked femtosecond laser, consists of several hundred thousand precisely evenly spaced spectral lines. Such laser frequency combs have revolutionized the art of measuring the frequency of....
More details | Watch nowSpontaneous Ionization to Subatomic Physics: Some Vignettes from Cosmic Ray History
In 1879 Crookes discovered that air seemed to ionize spontaneously. With the discovery in 1896 of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel it appeared that the mystery was solved. However a number of physicists sought a quantitative agreement between the....
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