Editor's note: This is a corrected version of a news release originally distributed Feb. 20 and provides the correct lecture sponsor.
Source: Dean Zollman, 785-532-1619, dzollman@phys.ksu.edu
Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008
NOBEL LAUREATE WILLIAM PHILLIPS TO PRESENT PUBLIC LECTURE AT K-STATE
MANHATTAN -- How revolutionary ideas by Albert Einstein on space and time are continuing to change the world today will be the subject of a special lecture at Kansas State University by a Nobel laureate.
William D. Phillips, a Fellow of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and university distinguished professor of physics at the University of Maryland, will present "Time and Einstein in the 21st Century: The Coolest Stuff in the Universe" at 3:30 p.m. Monday, March 3, at the K-State Alumni Center.
The lecture, aimed at high school students, college students and the general public, is free and is sponsored by the Peterson Public Lecture Series in Physics. The lecture series was endowed by Chester Peterson Jr., Lindsborg, who earned two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree from K-State.
The lecture will be a multimedia presentation that will include experimental demonstrations and down-to-earth explanations about some of today's key science.
Phillips and two other noted physicists shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for physics in recognition of their work in developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.
Cooling atoms, an Einstein idea, has made some of today's most vital technology possible, such as atomic clocks, the best timekeepers available, according to Phillips. Such super-accurate clocks have become essential to industry, commerce and science, and also are the heart of the Global Positioning System, which guides cars, airplanes and even hikers to their destinations.
Atomic clocks are still being improved today, using Einstein's ideas to cool the atoms to incredibly low temperatures. Atomic gases can reach temperatures less than a billionth of a degree above absolute zero without solidifying. Such atoms enable clocks' accuracy to better than a second in 60 million years, as well as both using and testing some of Einstein's strangest predictions, according to Phillips.