| Nobel Prize awarded to Munich Scientist |
|
2005 Nobel Prize for physics goes to Professor Theodor W. Hänsch researcher John L. Hall. The Swedish Academy of Sciences is honoring the two physicists’ contribution to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy with which the color of light from atoms and molecules can be determined with extreme accuracy. The other half of the prize is going to American researcher Roy J. Glaubner, who also works in the field of quantum physics. Hänsch was born in Heidelberg in 1941. He received his doctorate in physics at the University of Heidelberg and since 1986 has been a professor at LMU Munich and director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich. Among other honors, Hänsch has received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Association and the Philip Morris Research Prize. He has a Cross of Honor, 1st class from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Bavarian Maximilian Medal for Science and Art. This year, he also received the Otto Hahn Prize. LMU Rector Professor Bernd Huber congratulated the freshly minted Nobel laureate, “An exceptional scientist is being honored in the person of Theodor Hänsch, whose groundbreaking work has become an indispensable part of modern science. We congratulate him and his colleagues and celebrate with him, not least because this also underlines the excellence of the sciences at LMU.” The research According to the jury, the important papers by Theodor Hänsch and John Hall have made it possible to measure frequencies with a heretofore unknown precision of 15 places behind the decimal point. Lasers with extreme color accuracy can now be built for it. The frequency comb method developed by Hänsch allows the precise assessment of the whole spectrum of light frequencies. For example, they make it possible to examine the stability of natural constants over time. Thanks to this new method, the differences between matter and antimatter can also be determined, hydrogen being of particular interest in this regard. But it also enables the development better GPS technology, the satellite based navigation system, and extremely precise clocks. The jury even predicts the introduction of a new optical standard clock. There are also potential applications for telecommunication and measurements over astronomical distances. Nobel Price Recipients from Ludwig Maximilian University Munich Theodor W. Hänsch is the 13th Nobel Price recipient from LMU. Hänsch takes his place beside such renowned physicists as Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Wilhelm Wien, Max von Laue, Werner Heisenberg and Gerd Binnig. Binnig received the Nobel Price in physics in 1986 for the invention of Scanning Tunnelling Microscope. Contact: German University Alliance Irmintraud Jost Phone: 212-758-3392 |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|