The
students in ARSC 10 (Major Concepts in Modern Science)
were delighted to host a visit from Nobel Prize winner,
Dr. Eric Cornell, on Friday, October 14 th . Cornell
was making his rounds during a visit to Marquette
hosted by the Department of Physics, and he gave the
students an experience they would never forget.
Dr.
Cornell proved to be an energetic speaker whose ability
to keep an audience enrapt was matched only by his
excitement about his research in quantum physics.
In telling the story of his journey from rocket building
in his youth to studying physics, he acknowledged
the influence of teachers in his own life in inspiring
him to his work. He stressed the importance of good
educators and encouraged his audience to get excited
about their subject material and pass that excitement
along to students. Dr. Cornell left the door open
for questions, which gave the students an opportunity
to ask about everything from God and Science to the
possibilities presented by fuel-efficient cars in
the 21 st century. Dr. Cornell also talked about receiving
the Nobel Prize, his work with Bose-Einstein condensation
(BEC), and the implications of quantum physics.
“He
was quite able to talk about his discovery that won
the Nobel Prize as well as what he is working on now
in language that the lay person could understand.
He has a good sense of humor and told lots of
good stories about how he became a physicist and how
he heard about his award.” - Dr. Lauren
Leslie
VIDEO
CLIPS OF DR. CORNELL'S PRESENTATION:
Eric
Cornell received his B.S. from Stanford University
in 1985, and his PhD from MIT in 1990. His doctoral
research, with Dave Pritchard, was on precision mass
spectroscopy of single trapped molecular ions. Cornell
went to JILA in Boulder , Colorado in 1990. Since
1992 he has been a senior scientist with the National
Institute of Standards and Technology. He is a Fellow
of JILA and Professor Adjoint in the Physics Department
of the University of Colorado . His research interests
include various aspects of ultracold atoms, in particular
Bose-Einstein condensation and chip-based atom traps.
He is also working on using precision molecular spectroscopy
to explore possible extensions to the Standard Model
of particle physics. He shares the 2001 Nobel Prize
in Physics with Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle.
For
more information about Cornell and his work, visit
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/2001/cornell-autobio.html
