Several weeks ago, I announced a contest to determine the Most Amazing Laser Application. Personal issues interrupted this, but I want to finish it out in honor of LaserFest Here’s the list of finalists, with links to those already written up: Cat toy/ dog toy/ laser light show Laser cooling/ BEC Lunar laser ranging Optical… Continue reading Return of the Laser Smackdown
Category: Experiment
Belated March Meeting Wrap-Up
I did one sketchy update from Portland last Tuesday, but never wrote up my impressions of the rest of the March Meeting– when I got back, I was buried in grading, and then trying to put together Monday’s presentation. And, for reasons that will become apparent, I was unable to write anything up before I… Continue reading Belated March Meeting Wrap-Up
Cooling a “Macroscopic” Object to Its Quantum Ground State
Several people have sent me links to news stories about last week’s Nature paper, “Quantum ground state and single-phonon control of a mechanical resonator.” (It was also presented at the March Meeting, but I didn’t go to that session). This is billed as the first observation of quantum phenomena with a “macroscopic” or “naked eye… Continue reading Cooling a “Macroscopic” Object to Its Quantum Ground State
Sketchy March Meeting Notes: Monday
I’m terrible about taking notes on conference talks, especially when I’m jet-lagged and was sleep deprived even before I got on the plane. I do jot down the occasional paper reference, though, so here are the things I wrote down, and the talks they were associated with. This should give you some vague idea of… Continue reading Sketchy March Meeting Notes: Monday
The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy
One of the weird-but-cool things about being C-list famous on the Internet is that some publishers now send me unsolicited review copies of forthcoming books about science. These aren’t always the books I would really like to get free copies of, but, hey, free books. Among the books I’ve received in the last year or… Continue reading The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy
The Faulty Fluid Dynamics of Hotel Environmentalism
Boskone this past weekend was held at the Westin Waterfront in Boston, which has these funky double showerheads that they charmingly call the “Heavenly(R) Shower” (hype aside, they are very nice showers). The picture at right is courtesy of lannalee on Twitter, as I didn’t bring a camera. Why am I telling you this? Because… Continue reading The Faulty Fluid Dynamics of Hotel Environmentalism
Amazing Laser Application 2: Laser Cooling!
What’s the application? Using lasers to reduce the speed of a sample of atoms, thereby reducing their temperature to a tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero. What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) “How can I make this sample of atoms move slowly enough to measure their properties very accurately?” 2) “How… Continue reading Amazing Laser Application 2: Laser Cooling!
Wolf Prize for Quantum Pioneers
Congratulations to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for winning the 2010 Wolf Prize in Phyiscs: The 2010 Wolf Prize in Physics will be shared by Prof. John F. Clauser of the US; Prof. Alain Aspect of France’s Ãcole Normale Supérieure de Cachan; and Prof. Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna. The jury… Continue reading Wolf Prize for Quantum Pioneers
Laser Smackdown: The Most Amazing Use of a Laser?
Way back in the early days of ScienceBlogs, I ran a competition of sorts to determine the greatest physics experiment in history. I collected a bunch of nominations, wrote up a post about each of the top 11 entries, and then asked people to vote for their favorite. In honor of the 50th anniversary of… Continue reading Laser Smackdown: The Most Amazing Use of a Laser?
Single-Photon Cooling: Making Maxwell’s Demon
As mentioned previously, I’ve been reading Sean Carroll’s Wheel arrow of time book, which necessarily includes a good bit of discussion of “Maxwell’s Demon,” a thought experiment famously proposed by James Clerk Maxwell as something that would allow you to cool a gas without obviously increasing entropy. The “demon” mans a trapdoor between a sample… Continue reading Single-Photon Cooling: Making Maxwell’s Demon