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WELLESLEY, Mass.
-- "Almost Absolute Zero: The Story of Laser Cooling
and Trapping," a lecture by William Phillips, Fellow
at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and
1997 Nobel Laureate in physics, will be presented Monday,
April 12, at 4:45 pm at Wellesley College's Science Center,
room 278. (Refreshments will be served at 4:30 in the Science
Center lounge.) The events are free and open to the public.
Sponsored
by the Wellesley Physics Department, the talk is aimed
at a general audience, but discusses and demonstrates some
of the newest and most exciting developments in physics.
Phillips pioneered the development of laser cooling and
trapping of atoms, allowing subsequent breakthroughs in
physics, including the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation.
"Contrary
to intuition, we can cool down a gas by shining a laser
on it," Phillips said. "This lecture will describe
how laser cooling works, and why it works better than anyone
had expected it to. We can now cool a gas of atoms to less
than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero--the coldest
temperatures in the universe." These findings have
applications ranging from super-accurate atomic clocks to
quantum devices like atom lasers.
For more information,
contact Professor of Physics Ted Ducas at 781-283-3047.
Since
1875, Wellesley College has been a leader in providing an
excellent liberal-arts education for women who will make a
difference in the world. Its 500-acre campus near Boston is
home to 2,300 undergraduate students from all 50 states and 68
countries. For more information, go to
www.wellesley.edu.
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