Wolfgang Ketterle

Facts

Wolfgang Ketterle

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Wolfgang Ketterle
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2001

Born: 21 October 1957, Heidelberg, West Germany (now Germany)

Affiliation at the time of the award: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates”

Prize share: 1/3

Work

One of the fundamental numbers in the world of quantum mechanics is the spin quantum number. Particles and atoms that have whole-number spin are described by other rules and equations than those that have half-number spin. Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein predicted in 1924 that at very low temperatures atoms with whole-number spin would be able to concentrate themselves in the lowest energy state and form a Bose-Einstein condensate. In 1995 Wolfgang Ketterle succeeded in proving the phenomenon in a rarefied gas of sodium atoms at an extremely low temperature.

To cite this section
MLA style: Wolfgang Ketterle – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Tue. 10 Dec 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2001/ketterle/facts/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Streams during Nobel Week

Watch the 2024 Nobel Prize lectures, Nobel Week Dialogue, the prize award ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm and Nobel Peace Prize Forum here at nobelprize.org.

Watch lectures and award ceremonies

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.