Oct 9, 2018
So, as you probably already know by now, the Nobel Prize in
Physics 2018 was awarded to another trio: Gérard Mourou, Arthur
Ashkin and Donna Strickland, “for groundbreaking inventions in the
field of laser physics”. Specifically, Arthur Ashkin was awarded
the prize ““for the invention of optical tweezers and their
application to biological systems” and Mourou and Strickland were
awarded the prize for developing chirped pulse amplification, a
method of generating very short but very high-intensity pulses of
light with lasers.
In this episode, we'll describe how they made these groundbreaking
discoveries, and what they meant for science and physics in the
years that followed.
But as dismal as the world might seem sometimes, there’s still so
much joy to be found in the world of science, the world of physics,
and the glorious intricacies of the vast, complex, beautiful and
mysterious universe we all live in. And the human ingenuity that
has gone into allowing us to discover that, to even make strides
towards understanding it, is one of the best parts of our species.
Both of these discoveries, chirped pulse amplification and optical
tweezers, represent clever tools that we have developed to allow us
to probe and explore and understand nature, and there can be few
greater undertakings than that. So here’s to the scientists who won
the Nobel Prize in 2018, for giving us the tools that can help in
many more discoveries to come.
That’s all for this special episode. Remember, if you like the
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