"Does the Everyday World Really Obey Quantum Mechanics?" Set for 14 November
30 October 2001 --
Anthony J. Leggett,
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will present the 2001 E. W. Mueller Memorial
Lectures in Physics on 14 and 15 November on the Penn State University
Park campus. The series of two lectures is sponsored by the Department
of Physics and the Eberly College of Science.
The first lecture, titled "Does the Everyday World Really Obey Quantum
Mechanics?" is intended for a general audience and is open to the
public free of charge. It is scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday,
14 November, in 117 Osmond Laboratory. The second lecture will be a Department
of Physics colloquium, "Superfluidity, Phase Coherence, and the New
BEC Alkali Gases," at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 15 November, in 117
Osmond Laboratory.
Leggett is a theoretical physicist whose overall research program focuses
on superconductors, superfluids, glasses, and other condensed-matter systems.
He has been particularly interested in the use of Josephson-junction devices--a
particular type of connection between superconductors--to test the validity
of quantum theory at the macroscopic level. Leggett developed a methodology
for describing the dynamics of a macroscopic object based on the quantum
mechanics of its microscopic components--electrons and other subatomic
particles. The significance of his work was highlighted recently when
two research groups experimentally observed novel macroscopic quantum
effects in Josephson junctions.
In addition, Leggett's work has shaped the understanding of normal and
superfluid helium. He has proposed a remarkable scenario for the local
heating of superfluid helium-3, a phenomenon that is believed by some
to be related to phenomena occurring in the early universe.
His research accomplishments have earned Leggett numerous awards, including
a Maxwell Medal and Prize of the British Institute of Physics in 1975,
a Fritz London Memorial Award in 1981, a Simon Memorial Prize in 1981,
a Paul Dirac Medal and Prize of the British Institute of Physics in 1992,
a John Bardeen Prize with G. M. Eliashberg in 1994, and a Eugene Feenberg
Memorial Medal in 1999. Leggett has been honored by membership in many
prestigious organizations, as well. He is currently a member of the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
He is a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of
the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and
an Honorary Fellow of the British Institute of Physics.
The Erwin W. Mueller Memorial Lecture in Physics honors the late Erwin
W. Mueller, who was an admired and respected member of the Department
of Physics from 1952 until his death in 1977. Among his many accomplishments
were important contributions to the field of microscopy. He invented the
field ion microscope, which enabled him to be the first person to see
individual atoms. He also invented the atom-probe field ion microscope,
an instrument that can aim at a single atom in a crystal surface, separate
it from surrounding atoms, and identify it by mass. For his numerous achievements,
he was the first person at Penn State awarded the National Medal of Science.
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