Lee Historical Lectures in Physics: William D. Phillips, Apr 22-23, 2025
William D. Phillips
Distinguished University and College Park Professor, University of Maryland
Co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics
all lectures will be held in Jefferson Lab 250
and streamed live through zoom (please see the link below)
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 @4:30PM:
"Time, Einstein, and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe"
(lecture with demos)
At the beginning of the 20th century Einstein changed the way we think about Time. Now, early in the 21st century, the measurement of Time is being revolutionized by the ability to cool a gas of atoms to temperatures millions of times lower than any naturally occurring temperature in the universe. Atomic clocks, the best timekeepers ever made, are one of the scientific and technological wonders of modern life. Such super-accurate clocks are essential to industry, commerce, and science; they are the heart of the Global Positioning System (GPS), which guides cars, airplanes, and hikers to their destinations. Today, the best primary atomic clocks use ultracold atoms, achieve accuracies better than one second in 100 million years, while a new generation of atomic clocks is leading us to re-define what we mean by time. Super-cold atoms, with temperatures that can be below a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, use, and allow tests of, some of Einstein's strangest predictions.
Additional Lecture: Wednesday, April 23, 2025 @4:30PM
"A New Measure: The revolutionary, quantum reform of the modern metric system"
The International System of Units (the SI), the modern metric system, recently underwent its most revolutionary change since its origins during the French Revolution. The nature of this revolution is that all of the base units of the SI are now defined by fixing values of natural constants. Our measurement system is now, both philosophically and practically, decidedly quantum. This talk will recall some of the history of how units have been defined in the past, describe why the quantum reform was needed, and how it is done.
William D. Phillips received a B.S. from Juniata College in 1970, and a Ph.D. from MIT in 1976; after two years as a postdoc at MIT, he joined NIST to work on precision electrical measurements and fundamental constants. There, 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. His research group has developed some of the principal techniques used for laser-cooling and cold-atom experiments in laboratories around the world. Atomic fountain clocks, based on the work of this group, are now the primary standards for world timekeeping. The group also studies quantum information applications of cold atoms.
Dr. 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, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a corresponding member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. In 1997, Dr. Phillips shared the Nobel Prize in Physics "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light."
The lectures are sponsored by the Marvin and Annette Lee Fund
Zoom webinar
When: Apr 23, 2025 04:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Apr 22, 2025 04:30 PM
Apr 23, 2025 04:30 PM
Topic: William D. Phillips - 2025 Lee Historical Lecture in Physics
Join from PC, Mac, iPad, or Android:
https://harvard.zoom.us/j/94723366059?pwd=L5ujL1hgsY4Ylg9m7gaoGdhzD287I3.1
Passcode:767627
Phone one-tap:
+13126266799,,94723366059#,,,,*767627# US (Chicago)
+16469313860,,94723366059#,,,,*767627# US
Join via audio:
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 929 436 2866 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 305 224 1968 US
+1 309 205 3325 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 689 278 1000 US
+1 719 359 4580 US
+1 253 205 0468 US
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 360 209 5623 US
+1 386 347 5053 US
+1 507 473 4847 US
+1 564 217 2000 US
+1 669 444 9171 US
Webinar ID: 947 2336 6059
Passcode: 767627
International numbers available: https://harvard.zoom.us/u/ael2GVJpIa
Join from an H.323/SIP room system:
H.323:
144.195.19.161 (US West)
206.247.11.121 (US East)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
159.124.15.191 (Amsterdam Netherlands)
159.124.47.249 (Germany)
159.124.104.213 (Australia Sydney)
159.124.74.212 (Australia Melbourne)
170.114.180.219 (Singapore)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
159.124.168.213 (Canada Toronto)
159.124.196.25 (Canada Vancouver)
170.114.194.163 (Japan Tokyo)
147.124.100.25 (Japan Osaka)
Meeting ID: 947 2336 6059
Passcode: 767627
SIP: 94723366059@zoomcrc.com
Passcode: 767627