Monday at Lindau

Monday’s Blog

The scientific content got off to a strong start yesterday with talks on new states of matter (Bose Einstein condensates). You can watch the lecture’s here (http://www.lindau-nobel.de/PublicMeetingProgram.AxCMS?Meeting=105). Prof. Dr. Theodor W. Hänsch and Prof. Dr. William Daniel Phillips both spoke on this recently realised state of matter. One of the laureates commented that this is truly an exciting time for physicists as we are now playing on the quantum level – an ideal platform on which experimentalists and theorists are happy. We are finally at a stage where we can experimentally realise the early 20^th century musings of Einstein and co.

Prof. Dr. Peter Grünberg spoke to us on “From Spinwaves to Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) and Beyond” – a discovery made some years ago. He made reference to the perseverance needed in science to make breakthroughs. This was echoed by many of his colleagues throughout the day.

Prof. Dr. Klaus von Klitzing (Director of the Max Planck Institute) was the highlight of the morning for me. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1985 for the discovery of the quantum hall effect. He spoke to us on Carbon Electronics claiming the future of electronics was in carbon. Much of his current research concerns carbon nanotubes and graphene (the research area of the group I work as part of). He outlined the possibilities these materials offer and spoke of the major problems that have to be over come to realise them. Speaking to Prof. von Klitzing in the afternoon, I asked him about his motivations and the conditions that he felt were conducive to carrying out excellent science. “The experiment is everything: an inquisitive mind never sees a negative result. Physicists love bumps on a curve because it means that something is occurring”, he said. Prof. Klitzing continued – “As scientists, we all need time to work on our ‘crazy’ ideas. Most Nobel Prize winning ideas have often happened as a consequence of investigating something else”. We agreed that the current grant systems used by many scientists are very restrictive in this regard. He held up the Max-Planck as a model research centre where scientists are free to follow their noses and see ideas through. The story of the invention of the Laser, in Bell labs, comes to mind as a research project that was ‘going nowhere’ for many years.