UQ honours 2005 Nobel Laureate

UQ is paying tribute to the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics with a free easy-to-understand public lecture on quantum optics followed by a ‘Glauberfest’ party.

Professor Peter Drummond and Dr Chris Vale from UQ Physics will deliver the Nobel Prize 2005 Colloquium at 4pm on Friday, October 14 in Room 222, Parnell (Physics) Building. As part of the celebrations, a “Glauberfest party”, with German sausage and cheese and wine, will follow the lecture at 5pm.

Professor Drummond said the three winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics were announced earlier this month and one of the new Nobel Laureates, Professor Roy J. Glauber, was affectionately known as “the father of quantum optics”.

“Professor Glauber was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence. He is a great scientist, with strong connections with Australia and New Zealand, and the award is felt by many to be long overdue," he said.

“His research and methods are widely used throughout the world. A number of UQ’s leading physicists studied in their early academic careers with Dan Walls, who was a student at Harvard with Professor Glauber.”

Professor Drummond said the two other Nobel Laureates, John Hall and Theodor Hansch, are both magicians with lasers and have created amazing advances in frequency stability, with many applications to atomic clocks and GPS navigation.

They were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including optical frequency comb technique.

Media: For further information contact Professor Peter Drummond on 3365 3404, email drummond@physics.com.au