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DTSTAMP:20240505T170000Z
UID:1713969465817@events.msu.edu
CATEGORIES:Conferences / Seminars / Lectures
DTSTART:20240505T170000Z
DTEND:20240505T180000Z
SUMMARY:Nobel Prize-winning physicist William Phillips - The Quantum Reform of the Modern Metric System 
DESCRIPTION:
 Abstract\n
 \n
 From the speaker:\n
 \n
 "The metric 
 system, now officially known as the International 
 System of Units (SI), was born with 
 the French revolution. It has recently undergone 
 its most revolutionary reform since that 
 birth. Famously, the kilogram is no longer defined 
 as the mass of an artifact, the International 
 Prototype Kilogram, but rather is now 
 a quantum concept, defined by fixing the value 
 of Planck's constant. In fact, all of the base 
 units of the SI are defined by fixing the 
 values of natural constants, and the SI now 
 has a distinctly quantum flavor. The quantization 
 of charge allows us to fix the charge of 
 the electron, defining the ampere as a certain 
 number of electrons per second. The unit of 
 temperature, the kelvin, is no longer based 
 on the triple point of water, but on the thermal 
 energy of the atomic/molecular components 
 of matter, by fixing the value of Boltzmann's 
 constant. The unit of time has long been quantum, 
 but its impending re-definition will 
 make it even more so."\n
 \n
 Bio\n
 \n
 William 
 D. Phillips received a bachelor's degree in 
 physics from Juniata College in 1970, and a PhD 
 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
 (MIT) in 1976. After two years as a Chaim 
 Weizmann postdoctoral fellow at MIT, he joined 
 the National Institute of Standards and Technology 
 (NIST) - then known as the National 
 Bureau of Standards - to work on precision electrical 
 measurements and fundamental constants. 
 There, he initiated a new research program 
 to cool atomic gases with laser light. He 
 founded NIST's Laser Cooling and Trapping Group, 
 and later was a founding member of the Joint 
 Quantum Institute, a cooperative research 
 organization of NIST and the University of Maryland 
 that is devoted to the study of quantum 
 coherent phenomena. His research group has 
 been responsible for developing some of the 
 main techniques now used for laser-cooling and 
 cold-atom experiments in laboratories around 
 the world. Their achievements include the first 
 electromagnetic trapping of neutral atoms; 
 reaching unexpectedly low laser-cooling temperatures, 
 within a millionth of a degree of 
 Absolute Zero; the confinement of atoms in optical 
 lattices; and coherent atom-optical manipulation 
 of atomic-gas Bose-Einstein condensates. 
 Atomic fountain clocks, based on the work 
 of this group, are now the primary standards 
 for world timekeeping and lattice-trapped 
 atoms are among the likely candidates for future 
 primary frequency standards. Among the group's 
 current research directions are the use 
 of ultra-cold atoms for quantum information 
 processing and quantum simulation of important 
 physical problems.\n
 \n
 Phillips is a fellow 
 of the American Physical Society, the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science, 
 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 
 He is a Fellow and Honorary Member of OPTICA 
 (formerly the Optical Society), a member 
 of the National Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical 
 Academy of Sciences, and a corresponding 
 member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. 
 In 1997, Phillips shared the Nobel Prize 
 in Physics "for development of methods to 
 cool and trap atoms with laser light."\n
 \n
 \n\n
 Price: free\n
 Sponsor: public\n
 Contact name: Bob Patterer\n
 Contact email: events@frib.msu.edu\n
 for more info visit the web at:\n 
 https://frib.msu.edu/gateway/events/talk-05may2024\n
LOCATION:Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (VIRTUAL)
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