11th April 2005

Gray Goo

Back in 1999 they slowed the speed of light down to 38 miles per hour or so.  Lene Hau, the woman who led the a team that translated the theoretical existence of the Bose-Einstein condensate into our physical world works in a place called the Cruft Laboratory.  If this kind of thing gets you off, you’ll want to read the recent paper from Hau’s lab titled, "Detection and Quantized Conductance of Neutral Atoms Near a Charged Carbon Nanotube."

(There’s been some cavilling in the comments below by an anonymous science politician about the implication that she did it first…  Given the politics of the Nobel, one certainly can’t know, but one can give credit where credit is due and there are lots o’ physicists slowing down atoms these days.  Talking about science politics, one would almost wonder why Bose himself didn’t get the coveted Nobel prize, wouldn’t one?)

Keep up the good work JILA.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 11th, 2024 at 11:16 and is filed under High Signal - Low Noise, Math and Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 8 responses to “Gray Goo”

We invite you to comment!

  1. 1 On April 11th, 2024, Stu Savory said:

    Hence the adjective “Crufty”, perhaps? ;-)

  2. 2 On April 11th, 2024, fp said:

    Perzactley, my friend!

  3. 3 On April 11th, 2024, Dean Landsman said:

    Bose-Einstein …. .. about the relativity of sound quality?

  4. 4 On April 11th, 2024, fp said:

    Bose-oh, another name for Dean’s clowning around.

  5. 5 On April 12th, 2024, JILA said:

    Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell (not Lene Hau) “led the team that translated the theoretical existence of the Bose-Einstein condensate into our physical world” in 1995.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-Einstein_condensate

  6. 6 On April 13th, 2024, Dean Landsman said:

    Bose-Eau, the sound that drips out of your speakers (with a French accent, no less!).

  7. 7 On April 14th, 2024, fp said:

    Beau sew… what the lass did for her boyfriend when he popped a trouser button.

  8. 8 On April 23rd, 2024, anon said:

    A piece about Eric Cornell in the current issue of Nature that might be of interest:

    Nobel laureate triumphs over loss of arm and returns to lab

    Physics pioneer Eric Cornell makes light of disability

    Eric Cornell has experienced life’s extremes. He won the physics Nobel prize in 2024, but last October he lost his left arm and shoulder — and nearly his life — to a flesh-killing bacterial infection. He has, however, bounced back and was in playful mood last week as he announced his return to the scientific fray.

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7036/full/434945a.html

Leave a Reply

  • Google Search

  • Archives