i'm petrified why because i think
there's only one that i could possibly
talk about
and that's if it goes to
our friends higgs and company this
year's nobel prize in physics is about
interaction between light and matter
the royal swedish academy of sciences
has decided to board the 2012
nobel prize in physics to zerg arose at
college de france in the cold normal
superior paris france
i think you're going to have to talk to
philip
i think
phil philip said here
i'm all right um they've just announced
the nobel prize and bread is brady's
with me here and
this is something
um
yeah he's happy to chat to you
where are you off to to stick to feel
because ed couldn't do it what is it
it's like
something to do with trapping light and
mata
weinberg and someone definitely sounds
like phil street
library
[Music]
it's not me you want brady it's peter
krueger and thomas fernholz
hello peter
i've i've got
brady with me i don't know if you've
just seen the nobel prize has been
announced i have not you didn't win that
but
does it mean
it's david weinland oh oh okay right so
that's your man all right
right here
it's a surprise because everyone
including myself
thought it's going to be higgs boson
higgs related science that would get the
prize this year and
surprise surprise it's not so i haven't
actually read the citation but the prize
is for
dave weinland who is
in boulder in colorado and um sergio
rosh who's in paris
and both are pioneers in quantum physics
in each each in their own way
know how to control
single
particles quantum particles and actually
observe quantum physics in the
laboratory
in dave weinland's case it's ions
charged atoms
of various kinds and in sasha oscar's
case it's photons particles of light
what is amazing is that they can
actually isolate individual particles
from
the environment so that they can look at
how they behave
without the influence complicated
influence they have with with the rest
of the world why is that difficult
so it's have you tried to trap a single
atom
well the first thing is that atoms react
with other atoms they form molecules
they
they stick to surfaces so you basically
have to create a system
in your laboratory where things are
isolated
so one thing we also do in this
laboratory is actually build vacuum
chambers
but basically a vacuum means there's
nothing in it and there's almost nothing
in it but a little bit there is and then
you can start to think about how to
trap these individual particles because
it's slightly different for the for the
ions and the photons so let's start with
the ions what they
actually i to my knowledge the first
time someone saw an individual atom was
an iron that was trapped you actually
need to
then once you have it in your vacuum
chamber contain it so that it doesn't
move
too much and hit because the vacuum
chamber has a certain size and you want
to keep it in the center of it the way
it's done with ions is actually with
electromagnetic fields so they charge
certain electrodes
and
in some cases you need static charges
and others you need
oscillating charges
and that was a an ingenious step
it was actually
led to a previous award of a nobel prize
to
wolfgang powell
who
trapped an iron for the first time but
dave weinland and colleagues developed
this technique much further and they
managed to not only trap these ions but
to actually do things with them
so
then they can look at the quantum
physics that goes on in a single
particle
and one of the features of quantum
physics that is
difficult that made it difficult to
observe
quantum physics when it was first
theoretically
developed earlier in the in the 20th
century
is that
that the quantum system very quickly it
turns into a classical system that is
very similar to the one that you
described that you just you know of
course you can grab a piece of something
and trap it in your hand by holding it
in quantum physics quantum physical
systems are different and the process
that turns the quantum system into a
classical system is called decoherence
and to directly observe that was one of
the
main achievements of actually both these
experimentalists who got the prize now
photons to trap photons is in some ways
even more difficult and actually
happened later in that sense unlike
atoms or ions photons can appear and
disappear
so they can be created and they can be
annihilated this is at least much more
difficult for massive particles the way
the photons are trapped is in a
so-called cavity
which is
nothing more than
two mirrors that face each other if the
mirrors are very good mirrors then the
light would be reflected of course from
a mirror surface and then it would be
reflected from the opposing mirror and
then it goes back and forth if the
mirrors are very good that happens many
times and the photon
actually survives for a long time in
this arrangement and the trick in
harosh's experiment was to make these
mirrors very very good mirrors
and this was done first for for
light of microwave frequency so we don't
usually perceive that as light but it is
just as much electromagnetic waves as
as photons optical photons are that we
we see
and in more recent experiments he also
managed to do that with
light in the visible range well i think
what we're witnessing now is actually a
time where these things where we go from
just fundamental understanding to
actually
using
quantum systems
to build devices that are
appliances and future devices for
building new computers
making new sensors that are more
sensitive and have better performance
than existing ones when the nobel prize
is given in your field is that good for
you
i would say definitely yes
because it makes the the field in
general more attractive
people understand
more what we're talking about we have
videos like yours then we have a chance
to explain things and the media will be
uh full of
reports on
public generally understandable reports
from the field
funding agencies will be aware of this
colleagues will be aware of this so they
will believe us more than what we do
actually makes sense
i was spending a lot of time with him
but again it was uh
it was his lab his uh his group and you
could feel basically all these great
ideas coming from him and they basically