Nobel Prize Laureate to discuss atomic clocks at YCP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

            YORK, Pa. – Nobel Prize Laureate William Phillips will present a multimedia presentation on atomic clocks, including experimental demonstrations and down-to-earth explanations about some of today’s most exciting science, at 3:30 p.m., May 1, in York College’s DeMeester Recital Hall, Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall. The event, sponsored by the Department of Physical Science, is open to the public free of charge.

            Phillips’ presentation, “Time, Einstein and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe,” will discuss how Einstein’s thinking is shaping one of the key scientific and technological wonders of contemporary life: atomic clocks, the best timekeepers ever made.  Such super-accurate clocks are essential to industry, commerce, and science; they are the heart of the Global Positioning System (GPS), which guides cars, airplanes, and hikers to their destinations.  

            Phillips shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.” He is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., where he leads the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group.

            A NIST Fellow since 1996, Phillips is internationally known for advancing basic knowledge and new techniques to chill atoms to extremely low temperatures. The cooling and trapping of atoms, a discipline that emerged in the mid-1970s with the advent of laboratory lasers, has allowed scientists to observe and measure quantum phenomena in atoms that seem to defy the physical principles governing our tangible room-temperature realm.

            A native of Wilkes-Barre, Phillips earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Juniata College and a doctorate in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1997.

            Located in southcentral Pennsylvania, York College offers more than 50 baccalaureate majors in professional programs, the sciences and humanities to its 4,600 undergraduate students. The College also offers master's programs in business, education and nursing. A center of affordable academic excellence, York is dedicated to the intellectual, professional and social growth of its students. The College helps them develop a concrete plan to attain academic growth and career success; encourages them to try in the “real world” what they learn in the classroom; and prepares them to be professionals regardless of the career they pursue.

 

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