Innsbruck Physics Lecture 2024
with Nobel Laureate Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle
John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics,
MIT Dep. of Physics (Cambridge)
Wolfgang Ketterle was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, alongside Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman, for achieving Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, a groundbreaking new state of matter. Wolfgang Ketterle completed his PhD in experimental molecular spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching. Following his postdoctoral work in Germany, he moved to the United States in 1990, joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his work with ultracold atoms advanced rapidly. In 1995, he successfully demonstrated Bose-Einstein condensation, marking a milestone in quantum physics. Among his other honors, Ketterle has received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics and the Fritz London Prize in Low Temperature Physics, underscoring his impact on atomic physics. Currently, as John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ketterle’s research focuses on the exotic properties of ultracold gases, exploring superfluidity, coherence, and correlations in quantum many-body systems.
New insights into quantum mechanics by studying ultracold atoms
Cooling to nanokelvin temperatures provides us with control over atoms at the quantum level. This has allowed us to demonstrate important quantum phenomena, including the realization of Bose-Einstein condensation and other new forms of matter, studies of how atoms scatter light, and how atoms interact with each other.
Past Lectures
The Innsbruck Physics Lecture has welcomed many distinguished researchers to Innsbruck, among them several Nobel laureates, offering insights into current discoveries and central questions in modern physics. The archive reflects the wide range of topics covered by the series.
Jacqueline Bloch
19 March 2024
When light sheds light on condensed matter
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Rainer Weiss
19 October 2021
The beginning of gravitational wave astronomy: current state and future
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Joachim Ullrich
22 October 2019
Linking the International System of Units to Fundamental Constants
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Francis Halzen
30 October 2018
IceCube: Opening a New Window on the Universe from the South Pole
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Dan Shechtman
17 October 2017
Quasi-Periodic Crystals – A Paradigm Shift in Crystallography
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Paul Corkum
10 November 2016
Probing quantum systems from the inside – on the attosecond time scale
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Alain Aspect
10 November 2015
From the Einstein-Bohr debate to entangled qubits: a new quantum revolution
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Michael Kramer
4 November 2014
Nearly 100 years after General Relativity: Was Einstein right?
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Immanuel Bloch
22 October 2013
Controlling and Exploring Quantum Matter at the Single Atom Level
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Wim Ubachs
13 November 2012
Search for a variation of fundamental constants
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Reinhard Genzel
4 October 2011
Massive Black Holes and Galaxies
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