Published: March 20, 1997

Physics Professor Carl Wieman of the University of Colorado at Boulder will describe events leading to the globally acclaimed discovery of a new state of matter called Bose-Einstein condensation in a public lecture on April 2.

Wieman will lecture on "The Circuitous Path of a Physics Discovery: How Tinkering with Lasers Led (After 10 Years) to Bose-Einstein Condensation" at 8 p.m. in the JILA Auditorium on the CU campus.

The free lecture is intended for a general audience. A reception will follow on the 10th floor of the JILA Tower.

Wieman and Eric Cornell, a staff physicist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, led the scientific team that created the first Bose-Einstein condensate in a JILA laboratory in 1995. JILA is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NIST.

Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when individual atoms meld into a “superatom” at a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero.

Wieman has received numerous awards for the discovery including the 1997 King Faisal International Prize for Science and the Fritz London Prize in Low-Temperature Physics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The talk is the 88th Lecture on Research and Creative Work presented at CU-Boulder.

The JILA Auditorium is located at the north end of the JILA building near the corner of Colorado Avenue and 18th Street. Enter the JILA building at the doors underneath the overhead walkway leading from JILA to the Duane Physics building.

Parking is available in the Euclid Autopark next to the University Memorial Center for $1.

For directions or further information call (303) 492-6431.