Physics Events

Maurer Lecture
4 p.m.
April 6 2007
Donald W. Reynolds Center
(Sam Walton School of Business)

Dudley R. Herschbach
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1986)

Outdoing Maxwell's Demon: Taming Molecular Wildness
A Tele-Lecture

Nobel Laureate Dudley Herschbach received his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard in 1958. He was a Chemistry Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley (1959-1963), before returning to Harvard (1963), where he has been Baird Professor of Science since 1976. He won the Nobel Prize for using molecular beams to probe the dynamics of chemical reactions in single collisions, an approach that had long been considered impossible. His research is devoted to methods for orienting molecules for studies of collisions, slowing and trapping of cold molecules to examine chemistry when molecules interact as waves rather than particles, and a dimensional scaling approach to many-particle interactions in electronic structure and Bose-Einstein condensates. He is passionate about pre-college science education as well and is engaged in several efforts to improve K-12 science education and public understanding of science.

Sponsored by the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Info on past Maurer Lectures

1995 - Robert Maurer Lecture Established

1995 - First Maurer Lecture: Sheila Tobias

1996 - Second Maurer Lecture: J. Craig Wheeler

1997 - Third Maurer Lecture: Richard Zare

1998 - Fourth Maurer Lecture: Nicolaas Bloembergen

1999 - Fifth Maurer Lecture: William Phillips

2000 - Sixth Maurer Lecture: Lawrence Krauss

2001 - Seventh Maurer Lecture: Phillip Morrison

2002 - Eighth Maurer Lecture: Steven Chu

2003 - Nineth Maurer Lecture: Leon Lederman