Spring Break
Nobel Laureate speaks to students
Aditi Dubey
Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: News
|
"This year's Kaczmarczik Lecture will go down in history as possibly the coolest and most explosive Kacmarczik lecture at Drexel ever," Roberto Ramos, assistant professor of physics, wrote in an e-mail. "In this lecture, professor Bill Phillips masterfully weaved a fascinating story of how ideas from quantum mechanics and relativity led to the development of atomic clocks."
According to the Department of Physics' web site, the Kaczmarczik series seeks to bring to Drexel "outstanding scientists to present lectures on topics at the cutting edge of Physics research."
Phillips opened his presentation with a detailed description of Einstein's contributions to Physics, including the theory of Relativity and Photoelectric effect, and during the course of his lecture explained concepts like the theory of Relativity, Doppler shift and the Photoelectric effect.
"The goal of this lecture is to expose a much wider audience to fascinating concepts at the forefront of Physics research," Laura D'Angelo, research coordinator in the Department of Physics, said. "We want to give the students the opportunity to meet with prominent scientists."
Another concept Phillips covered was liquid nitrogen, which he used to explain the concept of cold atoms to the audience. Many audience members stood from their seats to watch Phillips' demonstrations, in which he used liquid nitrogen to freeze and shatter flowers and racquetballs.
"Dr. Philips … injected some humor and experimentation into his, which kept me quite interested," Jerome Mlack, a pre-junior majoring in Physics, said.
The entire auditorium was packed with undergraduate, graduate and high school students, staff and faculty members. Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, John DiNardo, and College of Arts and Sciences Dean Donna Murasko, were also present.
According to D'Angelo, all the speakers for the Kaczmarczik lectures, including Phillips, do this free of cost, purely in the interest of students.
Phillips was born and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. In 1997, he won the Nobel Prize for "the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light," according to Nobelprize.org. He is currently associated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology located in Maryland.
Be the first to comment on this story