• The 2005 Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science • History of the Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science • Video Reproduction Information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn more about Moses Chan's research by reading his past press releases: • Strong New Evidence of a New, Supersolid, Phase of Matter (30 August 2004) • Probable Discovery of a New, Supersolid, Phase of Matter (14 January 2004) •New Center or Nanoscale Science Established at Penn State (14 October 2002)

Read a profile about Moses Chan in the on-line edition of Research Penn State

Free Public Lecture on 19 February

10 February 2005 — A free public lecture titled "Einstein's Legacy in Low-Temperature Physics: Bizarre Behavior of Gas, Liquid, and Solid Matter Near Absolute Zero" will be given on 19 February 2005 by Moses Chan, Evan Pugh Professor of Physics at Penn State. This is the last lecture in the 2005 Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science, an annual series designed as a free minicourse for the enjoyment and education of residents in Central Pennsylvania communities. The theme of the series this year is "Einstein’s Legacy: A centennial celebration of Einstein’s “miraculous year” and its influence on science today." The lecture will take place from 11:00 a.m. to about 12:30 p.m. in 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park Campus.

Chan will discuss the prediction that Albert Einstein made with his colleague Satyendra Bose that a collection of certain types of particles at very cold temperatures can lose their individual identities and coalesce into a single entity known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. In liquid helium, this transformation turns the liquid into a frictionless superfluid with a multitude of amazing properties. Although this effect was not thought to be possible in a solid, Chan and Penn State graduate student Eunseong Kim recently found evidence for such a “supersolid” helium phase. During his lecture, Chan will describe how his lab made this fascinating discovery.

Chan’s research is aimed at answering, or raising, fundamental questions about matter in its various phases or states, such as liquid, solid, and gas. He is particularly interested in phase transitions—the conditions under which a material changes from one phase to another—in quantum fluids, in reduced dimensions, and in the presence of disorder. The principles he and his research group have helped to establish have proven to be useful in understanding a wide variety of problems in condensed-matter systems undergoing phase transitions.

Chan was honored with a Senior Research Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 1982, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986, and the Fritz London Prize in Low-Temperature Physics in 1996. He was selected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1987 and as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. In 2004 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Chan received his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in physics from Bridgewater College in 1967. He received his master’s degree and doctoral degree in physics from Cornell University in 1969 and 1974, respectively. He was an assistant lecturer at the University of Hong Kong from 1969 to 1970, and was a research associate and instructor at Duke University from 1973 to 1976. He was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Toledo from 1976 until 1979, when he joined the faculty at Penn State as an assistant professor of physics. He was promoted to associate professor in 1984 and to professor in 1986. In 1990 he was named Distinguished Professor of Physics and in 1994 he was named Evan Pugh Professor of Physics. Since 2000 he has been the director of Penn State’s Center for Nanoscale Science, one of twenty-eight research centers in the National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program.

The Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science are sponsored by the Penn State Eberly College of Science, with additional financial support provided by Pfizer Inc.

Thomas Building is located at the intersection of Pollock and Shortlidge Roads on the Penn State University Park Campus. Free parking is available in the Eisenhower Parking Deck behind Eisenhower Auditorium off Bigler Road. For access assistance contact the Eberly College of Science Office of Public Information by telephone at (814) 863-0901 or by e-mail at science@psu.edu. For more information about the Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science, click on the web link at http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/frontiers.

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