Int'l Centre for Theoretical Physics 183d ago

Physics Nobel Laureates Eric Cornell and Wolfgang Ketterle are interviewed by ICTP Director Atish Dabholkar and ICTP Research Scientist Marcello Dalmonte. Eric Cornell, of the University of Colorado, USA, and Wolfgang Ketterle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates. They visited ICTP in May 2025 to attend the joint ICTP-Lincei Conference on Quantum Physics: from Foundations to Emerging Technologies, a three-day event organised by ICTP and the Italian Accademia dei Lincei to celebrate the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, proclaimed by the United Nations in 2025. The conference featured nine Nobel Laureates who have made major contributions to quantum mechanics. 00:07 Introduction 01:12 The road to Bose-Einstein condensation 06:00 Why sodium and rubidium 11:55 Collaboration and competition in science 15:04 Interdisciplinarity in science 22:07 Metrology 24:08 CP violation in atoms 24:42 Bose-Einstein condensation and quantum computing 30:35 The scientific community working on Bose-Einstein condensation 31:00 The ICTP community 31:49 The BEC conference 33:45 The importance of international collaboration 34:50 Bose and Einstein