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Nobel Prize in Physics: Seeing the Light

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the for-people-smarter-than-me dept.

lidden writes "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2005 has been awarded Roy J. Glauber "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence". And John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"."

7 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Bandwidth enhancement? by dada21 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The ambiguity of light (wave and/or particle) has always made my head spin. To think that a bulb gives off light in "infinite" (lower limit time angle of tau) blows my mind.

    Affiliating light with quantum theory seems like a stretch as quantum theory answers seem deus ex machina to me. I'm sure "wiser" people give this discovery merit, but even the "advanced information" link is ambiguous.

    If we can now comb out light frequencies to within 15 digits of accuracy, it seems like we can increase bandwidth over laser optics by many orders of magnitude. The long term gain in communications bandwidth could be huge if the technique is feasible cheaply by industry.

    If this technique can somehow be utilized with the radio spectrum instead of light, I wonder if similar increases in data space could be realized. I never contemplated light to radio in the physical sense.

    1. Re:Bandwidth enhancement? by i_should_be_working · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Affiliating light with quantum theory seems like a stretch as quantum theory answers seem deus ex machina to me.

      Quantum theory pretty much came out of studying light. Planck's constant, one of the defining characteristics of quantum theory was a result of Planck studying blackbody radiation. Same kind of radiation emmitted from a light bulb, just at a lower energy.

      And the measurement process, which almost no one is in agreement about, is about the only thing in the theory that has elements of deus ex machina.

    2. Re:Bandwidth enhancement? by geeber · · Score: 2, Interesting

      With radio we already have much more sophisticated modulation methods. Most "light band" modulation today is basically an automated, binary version of Morse Code, still effectively in the Stone Age

      And yet light wins out when it comes to raw transmission bandwidth. The same thing that makes it tough to modulate - i.e. it's high frequency, is what makes it attractive in terms of big fat pipes.

      --
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    3. Re:Bandwidth enhancement? by ScriptedReplay · · Score: 3, Interesting

      He should have been more specific. Try to get a real grip on things like protons with energy of ~10^19eV. Especially since the theory predicts a mean free path that's way too short for any sources to reach us at that energy level (nothing fitting the energy bill that we know of close enough to Earth) Not to mention the question of what kind of sources would accelerate them to such energies.

      It's all a question of perspective ;-)

    4. Re:Bandwidth enhancement? by Alomex · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To quote Richard Feynman:

      "It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama."

  2. Wikipedia by Frankie70 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I searched for Glauber & this is what I found.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glauber

    If this guy is good enough to win the Nobel, how come
    he isn't in Wikipedia?

  3. Re:From a Student by bigpat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I took Professor Glauber's "Waves Particles and the Structure of Matter" through the Harvard Extension School as a high school senior over a decade ago.

    It was probably the best course I have ever taken in any subject, but certainly out of my physics classes I will always remember it very fondly for how he was able to combine very illustrative descriptions of theory with very good physical demonstrations.

    Somewhat sadly, I eventually took up work in the computer field rather than stick with physics. So I cannot say that it laid the foundation for a career in physics for me, but I never looked at physical reality the same way since then and I have always tried to look more carefully whatever the subject.

    Very happy to see him recognized today for his achievements, he is a good person and a great teacher.