Wolfgang Ketterle

5 posts

Using 10,000 atoms and 1 to probe the Bohr-Einstein debate

9 min read
Analysis Scicomm Science Albert Einstein Bohr-Einstein debate complementarity Debye-Waller factor double-slit experiment hidden variables lasers Niels Bohr optical lattice optical tweezer Pan Jianwei quantum entanglement Quantum mechanics rubidium atoms scattered light uncertainty principle wavepacket Wolfgang Ketterle

The double-slit experiment has often been described as the most beautiful demonstration in physics. In one striking image, it shows the strange dual character of matter and light. When particles such…

Where is the coolest lab in the universe?

5 min read
Scicomm blue hypergiant Boomerang Nebula Bose-Einstein condensate cosmic microwave background energy density Eta Carinae gas outflow heat International Space Station kinetic energy Large Hadron Collider Nature News red giant temperature thermal equilibrium thermodynamics vacuum Vladivostok white dwarf Wolfgang Ketterle

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) performs an impressive feat every time it accelerates billions of protons to nearly the speed of light – and not in terms of the energy alone. For example, you release…

When cooling down really means slowing down

5 min read
Scicomm Albert Einstein atomic cooling atomic trap Bose-Einstein condensate Bose-Einstein statistics Carl Wieman Claude Cohen-Tannoudji collisional cooling diatomic molecules Eric Cornell Harvard University laser cooling Massachusetts Institute of Technoogy NaLi niobium nitride quantum chemistry quantum computing S Pancharatnam Satyendra Nath Bose Shivaramakrishnan Pancharatnam Sisyphus cooling spin polarization superconductors superfluids University of Waterloo Wolfgang Ketterle

Consider this post the latest in a loosely defined series about atomic cooling techniques that I've been writing since June 2018. Atoms can't run a temperature, but things made up of atoms, l…