Two physicists who developed techniques to study the interplay between light and matter on the smallest and most intimate imaginable scale won the Nobel Prize in Physics Tuesday. They are Serge Haroche, of the College de France in Paris Ecole Normale Supérieure, and David Wineland, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado.
They will split 8 million Swedish Kroners and receive their award in Stockholm on December 10.
Their work, the academy said, enables scientists to directly observe some of the most bizarre effects – such as the subatomic analogue of cats who are alive and dead at the same time – predicted by the quantum laws that prevail in the microcosm, and could lead eventually to quantum computers and super accurate clocks.
Reached by the Nobel committee while walking with his wife this morning in Paris, Dr. Haroche said that when he saw the area code on his phone, he said he had to go sit down on a bench. “It was real,” he said in a phone press conference.
They will split 8 million Swedish Kroners and receive their award in Stockholm on December 10.
Their work, the academy said, enables scientists to directly observe some of the most bizarre effects – such as the subatomic analogue of cats who are alive and dead at the same time – predicted by the quantum laws that prevail in the microcosm, and could lead eventually to quantum computers and super accurate clocks.
Reached by the Nobel committee while walking with his wife this morning in Paris, Dr. Haroche said that when he saw the area code on his phone, he said he had to go sit down on a bench. “It was real,” he said in a phone press conference.