Wolfgang Ketterle
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Wolfgang Ketterle
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.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
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