Cooling a gas of suitable atoms to extremely low temperatures can bring many of them into the same quantum state, producing a Bose-Einstein condensate. Krishna Choudhary and Lester Nare discuss the 1995 experiments associated with Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman, and Wolfgang Ketterle. The segment explores how a quantum prediction became something researchers could create and study in the laboratory.
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Many bosons can occupy the same quantum state at sufficiently low temperatures.
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Experiments in 1995 realized Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute atomic gases.
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Condensates allow collective quantum behavior to be studied in the laboratory.
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1:43:05As to be expected, 1995 creation of the first and one of my favorites, Bose Einstein condensate. Yeah. I mean, we've seen that photo in our podcast so many times, the one on the right. Yes. Showing the cloud of atoms behaving like a single atom. That's what's happening with the Bose Einstein condensates. This was first theorized by Bose and Einstein way back, I think, in the 1920s. Okay. Um, but realizing it is extremely difficult because you need a group of atoms and you need to cool it down to an insanely small degree. Okay, the Europeans and the Americans were both on a race to do this. Okay. Um, this is one of the big triumphs of the American system of just
1:43:47trying things and if it fails, don't worry about it and move on. Okay. Um Eric Cornell and Carl Weinman at Gila and NIST at Boulder and Wolf Gang Keterlay at MIT. They achieved the first dilute gas Bose Einstein condensate. Very famously Eric Cornell and Carl Weinman. They their ragtag setup was like they were using like the lasers from CD players and things like that because they were changing their setup every month. They're like, "Okay, this isn't working. I don't know where the temperature is leaking from. it's getting hot after we go down to this thing. Let's just let's just change it around. Meanwhile, um the Europeans, they had a theoretical idea of how it
1:44:28should work. And when it didn't work, they would just get stuck on why it didn't work. And it there's this really famous documentary that you can find on YouTube showing the difference between these two groups where Eric Cornell and Carl Wyman, they were just like, >> I don't even care to understand why this didn't work. I have a new idea. >> Yeah, let's move on. >> Let's move on. Um, the three of them won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics. >> Can you remind me does this have an overlap with the microscopic quantum tunneling piece that we talked about earlier? I I'm >> Yeah, because I mean they're condensates in the sense that like you know they're condensing matter into that form. Um, you got to be cold. Yes. >> Um, there is something I forget the
1:45:09connection though >> there because it reminded me back to that episode where we talked about the overlap between these two concepts. >> Yeah. Yeah. There is there is an overlap for But we will move on because that is not the focus of this episode. 1995 acquisition of the Hubble Deep Field. One of the greatest photographs >> ever taken. >> Ever taken. And for those who are listening, we do understand it's it's for there's a visual component to so many of our episodes. This is the picture of all of the different galaxies in the square box that you see printed in science classrooms and in museums all over the world. You've 100% seen this photo at one point in your life. >> Yes. And taking this photo was very controversial at the time. This was astronomer Robert Williams and the Space
1:45:51Telescope Institute. Um he had a crazy