Issue date: 10/9/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Spencer Selvidge Professor of Applied Physics and Theoretical Quantum Optics Marlan O. Scully stands in a classroom Monday. Scully received a position as a Morris Loeb Lecturer in Physics at Harvard University. [Click to enlarge]

An A&M professor has been selected as a lecturer for the 2007 Morris Loeb Lecture Series in Physics at Harvard University, a prestigious honor shared by the best scientific minds including 40 Nobel Prize winners.

Marlan Scully, distinguished proffessor of applied physics and theoretical quantum optics at Texas A&M University, is at the forefront in the field of quantum mechanics.

Scully is "a legend in his own time," and "it's hard to believe he's just one man," Dudley R. Herschbach, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry and Frank B. Baird Jr., professor of science at Harvard, who also has a part-time professorship at A&M, said in a news release.

During the spring, Scully will speak at Harvard where he will deliver a series of five lectures on his efforts at A&M to unite all fields of science under the umbrella of quantum physics, or the study of our "micro-world."

The lectures will include his recent developments in the application of quantum physics, ranging from using lasers to detect anthrax to the phenomenon known as quantum erasure, or how erasing the knowledge of information in one corner of the universe can change the outcome in another.

Scully said he has two main interests. "I'm interested in the very broad intellectual curiosity of quantum physics. What happens if we slow light down using gas, for example. But I'm also interested in how that can be applied in the practical world, such as in techniques for the detection of anthrax," he said.

For Geoff Lau, a sophomore chemical engineering major, it is important to have the leaders of the field at A&M.

Continued...

Page 1 of 3 next >

Article Tools