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Text : WTC-SWE

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(male narrator)
The greatest triumph
of civilization

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is often seen as
our mastery of heat.

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Yet our conquest of cold
is an equally epic journey

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from dark beginnings
to an ultra cool frontier.

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In the last 100 years,

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cold has transformed
the way we live and work.

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Imagine supermarkets without
refrigeration or frozen food,

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skyscrapers
without air-conditioning,

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hospitals without MRI machines
or liquid oxygen.

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We take for granted
the technology of cold,

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yet it has enabled us
to explore outer space

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and the inner depths
of our brain.

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And as we develop new
ultra cold technology

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to create quantum computers
and high-speed networks,

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it will change
the way we work and interact.

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By the late 19th century,

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the ultimate extreme of cold
had a number,

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-273 degrees Celsius,

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and a name..."Absolute Zero."

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A frontier so enticing
that rival physicists

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from all over Europe
began a race

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towards this absolute
limit of cold.

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It was a high-stakes pursuit,

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one that continues
even now as we explore

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a strange quantum world

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where fluids
appear to defy gravity

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and electricity flows freely
without resistance.

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"The race for Absolute Zero,"

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up next on "NOVA."

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(narrator)
A century ago, Antarctic
explorers were pushing

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further and further towards

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the coldest place on Earth,
the South Pole,

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where temperatures
can plummet to -80 degrees.

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The competition to reach
this goal was matched by

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a less publicized, but equally
daunting scientific endeavor,

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the attempt to reach

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the coldest point
in the universe--absolute zero.

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Was it possible to attain this
ultimate limit of temperature,

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-273 degrees Celsius?

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Only in a laboratory
by liquefying gases

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could scientific adventurers
take the first steps

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towards this Holy Grail,

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a place where atoms come
to a virtual standstill,

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utterly drained
of all thermal energy.

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Among the front-runners in
the race towards absolute zero

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was James Dewar, a professor at
the Royal Institution in London.

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(man, as James Dewar)
It will be the greatest
achievement of our age.

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(narrator)
In 1891, he gave
one of his celebrated

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Friday night public lectures

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on the wonders of the super cold
to celebrate the centenary

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of his great predecessor,
Michael Faraday.

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The descent to a temperature
within 5 degrees of zero

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would open up new vistas
of scientific inquiry,

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which would add immensely
to our knowledge

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of the properties
of matter.

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James Dewar is a canny
and I think very ambitious,

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practically-minded
Scottish scientist.

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He could really show
both his colleagues

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and the fee-paying audiences
some of the secrets of nature.

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Take this rubber ball...

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it bounces well,
I think you'll agree.

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But let's see what happens

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after a few seconds' immersion
in liquid oxygen.

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(narrator)
Dewar invented a thermal
insulated container

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to carry out his research,
and scientists to this day

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still call it a Dewar Flask.

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Now, let's
see what happens.

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[crack! ploof!]

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(Kostas Gavroglu) This
phantasmagoric aspect of science

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always helped science to be
accepted by the public.

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Though it is a little
mystifying, it did play a role

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of having society,
having the public accept

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that these weird people
in the laboratories

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are doing truly interesting,
if not magical things.

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(narrator)
Dewar's dream was
to take on the mantle

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of the Royal Institution's

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greatest scientist,
Michael Faraday.

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Seventy years earlier,
Faraday had done experiments

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showing that under pressure,

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gases like chlorine
and ammonia liquefy.

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He was curious to see if
this method of pressurizing

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gases into liquids could be used
for all gases.

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But some, what he called
the "permanent" gases;

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oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen,
would not liquefy

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no matter how much pressure
he applied.

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So he abandoned
this line of research.

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(as Dewar)
Faraday's was a mind
full of subtle powers,

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of divination
into nature's secrets...

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and although unable to liquefy
the permanent gases,

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he expressed faith
in the potentialities

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of experimental inquiry.

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The lowest point of temperature
attained by Faraday...

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was -130 degrees Centigrade.

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(narrator)
It was not until 1873 that
a Dutch theoretical physicist,

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Van Der Waals, finally explained

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why these gases were
not liquefying.

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By estimating
the size of molecules

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and the forces between them,

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he showed that to liquefy
these gases using pressure,

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they each had to be cooled below
a critical temperature.

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At last, he had shown
the way to liquefy

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the so-called permanent gases
was to cool them.

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Oxygen was first,
and then nitrogen,

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reaching a new low temperature

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of almost -200 degrees
Centigrade.

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(as Dewar)
Only the last of the permanent
gases remains to be liquefied,

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hydrogen, in the vicinity
of -250 degrees centigrade.

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It will be the greatest
achievement of our age,

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a triumph of science.

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(narrator)
Dewar was determined
to be the first to ascend

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what he called "Mount Hydrogen,"
but he was not alone.

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The competitor Dewar feared most

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was a brilliant Dutchman,
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes.

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(Simon Schaffer)
Kamerlingh Onnes
was younger than Dewar

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and to a certain extent

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looked up to the Scotsman
as his senior.

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Dewar didn't have the same,

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if you'll pardon
the expression, "warm feelings,"

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towards his rival
in the race for cold.

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(narrator)
Dewar recognized
that Kamerlingh Onnes

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had a new radical approach
to science

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and was planning
an industrial scale lab.

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(Dirk van Delft)
When Onnes took over
the physics laboratory

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in Leiden,
he was only 29 years old.

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And, well, he gave
his inaugural address

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here in this lecture room,

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the big lecture room
of the Academy Building

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of Leiden University,
and it was all there.

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He was explaining what to
do in the next years,

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and he was talking
about liquefying gases,

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making Dutch physics
famous abroad, and well,

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it was amazing how farsighted
all those visions were.

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(narrator)
Kamerlingh Onnes' lab
was more like a factory.

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He recruited instrument makers,
glassblowers,

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and a cadre of young assistants
who became known

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as "blue boys"
because of their blue lab coats.

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Later, he set up
a technical training school,

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which still exists to this day.

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Dewar and Onnes could not have
been more different.

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Dewar was
very secretive about his work,

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hiding crucial parts
of apparatus from public view

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before his lectures.

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Onnes on the other hand,
openly shared his lab's

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steady progress
in a monthly journal.

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Onnes was the tortoise
to Dewar's hare.

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In the case of Dewar, you had
a brilliant experimenter,

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a person who could actually
build the instruments himself,

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and a person who really believed
in the brute force approach,

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and that is,
have your instruments,

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set up your experiment,
and try as hard as you can,

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and then, you'll get
the results you want to get.

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In the case of Kamerlingh Onnes,

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you have a totally
different approach.

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He's the beginning
of what later on

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was known as
"big science".

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(narrator)
Unlike Dewar, Onnes thought
detailed calculations

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based on theory were vital
before embarking on experiments.

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He was a disciple and close
friend of Van Der Waals,

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whose theory had
helped solve the problem

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of liquefying permanent gases.

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Though their approaches
were different,

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Kamerlingh Onnes and Dewar

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used a similar process in their
attempts to liquefy hydrogen.

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Their idea was to go
step-by-step down a cascade

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using a series
of different gases

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that liquefy
at lower and lower temperatures.

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By applying pressure
on the first gas

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and releasing it into a cooling
coil submerged in a coolant,

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it liquefies.

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When this liquefied gas
enters the next vessel,

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it becomes the coolant

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for the 2nd gas in the chain.

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When the next gas is pressurized

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and passes
through the inner coil,

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it liquefies and is

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at an even lower temperature.

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The 2nd liquid goes on

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to cool the next gas and so on.

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Step by step, the liquefied
gases become colder and colder.

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Each one is used to lower

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the temperature of the next gas

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sufficiently for it to liquefy.

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In the final stage,
where hydrogen gas is cooled,

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the idea was to put it
under enormous pressure,

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180 times atmospheric pressure,

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and then suddenly release it
through a valve.

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This would trigger
a massive drop in temperature,

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sufficient to turn hydrogen gas
into liquid hydrogen

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at -252 degrees, just 21 degrees
above absolute zero.

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Here was the risky bit
because his apparatus was

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going down in temperature
getting very, very cold.

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So very fragile, quite easy
to fracture.

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While at the same time,

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the pressures he was working at
were very, very high,

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so the possibility of explosion.

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He took the most amazing risks,
both with himself--

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he was a lion of a man
in terms of courage--

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and with those around him.

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All the equipment
he was working with

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could have crumbled or blown up

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and more than
occasionally, it did.

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[loud explosion]

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(narrator)
Dewar had many explosions
in his lab.

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Several times,
assistants lost an eye

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as shards of glass
catapulted through the air.

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He had a notebook.
He actually writes,

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jots down many details of what
happened to the apparatus,

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but not what happened
to his assistants.

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So somehow you get the
impression that apparatus

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is more important
than the assistants.

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(narrator)
Over in Leiden, Onnes was
facing anxious city officials

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who were so worried
about the risk of explosions

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that they ordered the lab
to be shut down.

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Dewar wrote a letter of protest
on behalf of Onnes...

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but the Leiden lab remained
closed for 2 years.

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(Dirk van Delft)
Onnes had to wait
and to wait and to wait.

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Dewar was already starting
his liquefying hydrogen,

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and Onnes had the apparatus
to do so too,

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but he just couldn't start,

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so we had lost the battle
before it was even begun.

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The year is 1898.

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Dewar has been working on
trying to liquefy hydrogen

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for more than 20 years,
and he's finally ready

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to make the final assault
on Mount Hydrogen.

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(narrator)
By using liquid oxygen, they
brought down the temperature

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of the hydrogen gas
to -200 degrees Celsius.

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They increased the pressure till
the vessels were almost bursting

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and then opened the last valve
in the cascade.

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(as James Dewar) Shortly after
starting, the nozzle plugged,

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but it got free by good luck

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and almost immediately drops
of liquid began to fall

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and soon accumulated
20 cubic centimeters.

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(narrator) Dewar had
liquefied hydrogen,

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the last of the so-called
permanent gases.

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To prove it, he took
a small tube of liquid oxygen

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and plunged it into
the new liquid.

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Instantly, the liquid oxygen
froze solid.

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Now he was convinced.

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He had produced the coldest
liquid on earth

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and had come closer to
absolute zero than anyone else.

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(Tom Shachtman)
Dewar thought that he had done

243
00:15:09,894 --> 00:15:13,063
the most amazing feat
of science in the world,

244
00:15:13,064 --> 00:15:15,899
that he would be immediately
celebrated for it

245
00:15:15,900 --> 00:15:18,302
and get whatever prizes
there were available.

246
00:15:18,303 --> 00:15:19,970
And that didn't happen.

247
00:15:19,971 --> 00:15:24,642
I think for Dewar, it was
the ambition of a mountaineer.

248
00:15:24,643 --> 00:15:27,177
You've climbed
the highest mountain peak

249
00:15:27,178 --> 00:15:30,948
that you can see
in the range around you,

250
00:15:30,949 --> 00:15:33,884
and just as you get
to the top of the peak,

251
00:15:33,885 --> 00:15:37,521
there's an even higher mountain
just beyond.

252
00:15:37,522 --> 00:15:40,724
(narrator)
That new mountain was helium,

253
00:15:40,725 --> 00:15:42,993
a recently discovered inert gas

254
00:15:42,994 --> 00:15:47,398
that was originally thought
only to exist on the sun.

255
00:15:47,399 --> 00:15:51,602
Van Der Waal's theory predicted
helium would liquefy

256
00:15:51,603 --> 00:15:55,239
at an even lower temperature
than hydrogen,

257
00:15:55,240 --> 00:15:58,909
at around 5 degrees
above absolute zero.

258
00:15:58,910 --> 00:16:02,479
Now all Dewar had to do
was obtain some.

259
00:16:02,480 --> 00:16:04,848
It should not have been
difficult.

260
00:16:04,849 --> 00:16:08,419
The two chemists who had
discovered the inert gases,

261
00:16:08,420 --> 00:16:10,621
Lord Rayleigh
and William Ramsay,

262
00:16:10,622 --> 00:16:14,124
often worked together
in the lab next door.

263
00:16:14,125 --> 00:16:18,128
Unfortunately, Dewar had made
enemies of both of them

264
00:16:18,129 --> 00:16:21,665
by refusing to collaborate and
belittling their achievements,

265
00:16:21,666 --> 00:16:25,703
so they had no desire
to share their helium.

266
00:16:25,704 --> 00:16:28,872
Kamerlingh Onnes was faced
with the same problem as Dewar,

267
00:16:28,873 --> 00:16:32,409
which was where can I get
a supply of helium gas?

268
00:16:32,410 --> 00:16:34,111
And he actually asked Dewar

269
00:16:34,112 --> 00:16:36,747
to try and collaborate
with him too, and Dewar said,

270
00:16:36,748 --> 00:16:39,483
I'm having such a problem
getting the gas by myself,

271
00:16:39,484 --> 00:16:42,987
I can't possibly give you any.
I'd like to, but I can't.

272
00:16:42,988 --> 00:16:45,956
(narrator)
Eventually,
each found a supply,

273
00:16:45,957 --> 00:16:48,959
but Onnes' industrial approach
paid dividends.

274
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:51,962
After 3 years, he had amassed

275
00:16:51,963 --> 00:16:54,932
enough helium gas
to begin experiments.

276
00:16:54,933 --> 00:16:59,303
The tortoise was beginning
to pull away from the hare.

277
00:16:59,304 --> 00:17:04,074
At the same time, Dewar was
running out of resources.

278
00:17:04,075 --> 00:17:06,010
To make matters worse,

279
00:17:06,011 --> 00:17:10,447
a lab assistant
turned a knob the wrong way

280
00:17:10,448 --> 00:17:14,885
releasing a whole canister
of helium into the air.

281
00:17:16,521 --> 00:17:20,791
For 6 months,
the lab couldn't do any work.

282
00:17:20,792 --> 00:17:25,696
(Kostas Gavroglu)
At one point, Dewar
writes to Kamerlingh Onnes

283
00:17:25,697 --> 00:17:31,168
telling him that he is not
in the race anymore.

284
00:17:31,169 --> 00:17:35,072
He thinks that the problems
for liquefying helium

285
00:17:35,073 --> 00:17:40,010
are such that he's not able
to complete the job.

286
00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:43,814
The battlefields of science

287
00:17:43,815 --> 00:17:46,917
are the centers
of a perpetual warfare

288
00:17:46,918 --> 00:17:51,322
in which there is no hope
of a final victory.

289
00:17:51,323 --> 00:17:54,825
To serve
in the scientific army,

290
00:17:54,826 --> 00:17:57,695
to have shown the initiative

291
00:17:57,696 --> 00:18:01,665
is enough to satisfy
the legitimate ambition

292
00:18:01,666 --> 00:18:05,102
of every earnest student
of nature.

293
00:18:05,103 --> 00:18:06,804
Thank you.

294
00:18:18,783 --> 00:18:20,617
[steady ringing]

295
00:18:20,618 --> 00:18:24,154
(narrator)
In the summer of 1908,
Onnes summoned

296
00:18:24,155 --> 00:18:27,758
his chief assistant Flim
from across the river.

297
00:18:27,759 --> 00:18:31,729
They were finally ready
to try to liquefy helium.

298
00:18:36,234 --> 00:18:39,770
At 5:45 on the morning
of July the 10th,

299
00:18:39,771 --> 00:18:42,539
he assembled his team
at the lab.

300
00:18:42,540 --> 00:18:45,676
They had rehearsed the drill
many times before.

301
00:18:45,677 --> 00:18:48,045
Leiden was
a small university town

302
00:18:48,046 --> 00:18:52,483
and the word quickly spread
that this was the big day.

303
00:18:52,484 --> 00:18:55,319
It took until lunchtime
to make sure

304
00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:59,289
the apparatus was purged
of the last traces of air.

305
00:18:59,290 --> 00:19:02,026
By 3 in the afternoon,
work was so intense

306
00:19:02,027 --> 00:19:04,194
that when his wife arrived
with lunch,

307
00:19:04,195 --> 00:19:07,798
he asked her to feed him
so he didn't have to stop.

308
00:19:07,799 --> 00:19:09,833
At 6.30 in the evening,

309
00:19:09,834 --> 00:19:13,804
the temperature began to drop
below that of liquid hydrogen.

310
00:19:13,805 --> 00:19:16,240
But then it seemed to stick.

311
00:19:19,344 --> 00:19:23,514
(Tom Shachtman)
Onnes doesn't know why this is,
and a colleague comes in

312
00:19:23,515 --> 00:19:26,350
and he suggests that
that means maybe

313
00:19:26,351 --> 00:19:29,853
they've actually succeeded
and they don't even know it yet.

314
00:19:29,854 --> 00:19:33,757
So Onnes takes an electric lamp
type thing and he goes

315
00:19:33,758 --> 00:19:36,527
underneath the apparatus
and looks, and sure enough,

316
00:19:36,528 --> 00:19:40,064
there in the vial is this liquid
sitting there quietly.

317
00:19:40,065 --> 00:19:42,032
It's liquefied helium.

318
00:19:42,033 --> 00:19:46,370
(narrator)
They had reached
-268 degrees Celsius,

319
00:19:46,371 --> 00:19:50,107
just 5 degrees
above absolute zero

320
00:19:50,108 --> 00:19:53,243
and finally produced
liquid helium.

321
00:19:53,244 --> 00:19:55,145
This monumental achievement

322
00:19:55,146 --> 00:19:58,849
eventually won Onnes
the Nobel Prize.

323
00:20:00,385 --> 00:20:02,019
When James Dewar heard

324
00:20:02,020 --> 00:20:05,723
that he had lost the race
to Kamerlingh Onnes,

325
00:20:05,724 --> 00:20:07,725
it reignited
a festering resentment.

326
00:20:07,726 --> 00:20:10,594
Dewar berated his
long-suffering assistant Lennox

327
00:20:10,595 --> 00:20:13,497
for failing
to provide enough helium,

328
00:20:13,498 --> 00:20:16,834
only this time,
Lennox had had enough.

329
00:20:16,835 --> 00:20:20,037
He walked out of
the Royal Institution vowing

330
00:20:20,038 --> 00:20:24,875
never to return until Dewar was
dead... and he kept his word.

331
00:20:24,876 --> 00:20:32,082
For Dewar, it was the end
of his low temperature research.

332
00:20:36,254 --> 00:20:40,424
James Dewar's dream of reaching
absolute zero was over.

333
00:20:40,425 --> 00:20:44,995
Although he had won the first
race to liquefy hydrogen,

334
00:20:44,996 --> 00:20:49,133
it never attracted the same
accolades as liquefying helium.

335
00:20:49,134 --> 00:20:51,402
He abandoned
low temperature physics

336
00:20:51,403 --> 00:20:54,605
and moved on
to investigate other phenomena

337
00:20:54,606 --> 00:20:57,775
such as the science
of soap bubbles.

338
00:21:00,412 --> 00:21:03,947
(Simon Schaffer)
I think it's really impressive
how often

339
00:21:03,948 --> 00:21:08,218
scientists do seem to be driven
by the spirit of competition,

340
00:21:08,219 --> 00:21:10,954
by the spirit
of getting there first.

341
00:21:10,955 --> 00:21:13,757
But what's really fascinating
about these races,

342
00:21:13,758 --> 00:21:15,793
the race for absolute zero,

343
00:21:15,794 --> 00:21:19,863
is that the goalposts move
as you're playing the game.

344
00:21:19,864 --> 00:21:23,567
The race in science is not
for a predetermined end,

345
00:21:23,568 --> 00:21:26,203
and once you're there,
the story's over,

346
00:21:26,204 --> 00:21:27,905
the curtain comes down.

347
00:21:27,906 --> 00:21:30,541
That's not at all
what it's like.

348
00:21:30,542 --> 00:21:35,446
Rather, it turns out you find
things you didn't expect.

349
00:21:35,447 --> 00:21:39,883
Nature is cunning,
as Einstein would have said,

350
00:21:39,884 --> 00:21:43,821
and she is constantly
posing a new challenge,

351
00:21:43,822 --> 00:21:48,726
unanticipated by those people
who start out on the race.

352
00:21:48,727 --> 00:21:53,731
(narrator)
This is just what happened
in Leiden

353
00:21:53,732 --> 00:21:58,736
as Onnes' team began
to investigate how materials

354
00:21:58,737 --> 00:22:02,506
conduct electricity
at very low temperatures.

355
00:22:02,507 --> 00:22:06,343
They observed in a sample
of mercury

356
00:22:06,344 --> 00:22:10,681
that at around 4 degrees
above absolute zero,

357
00:22:10,682 --> 00:22:15,619
all resistance to the flow of
electricity abruptly vanished.

358
00:22:17,822 --> 00:22:22,693
Onnes later invented a word
to describe this new phenomenon.

359
00:22:22,694 --> 00:22:26,897
He called it
"superconductivity."

360
00:22:33,204 --> 00:22:37,374
(Allan Griffin)
We have a circular ring
of permanent magnets,

361
00:22:37,375 --> 00:22:39,843
which are producing
a magnetic field.

362
00:22:39,844 --> 00:22:44,448
And now when we put a
superconducting puck over it

363
00:22:44,449 --> 00:22:47,217
and give it a little push,

364
00:22:47,218 --> 00:22:50,354
the magnetic field
repels the superconductor.

365
00:22:50,355 --> 00:22:53,590
(narrator) The magnetic field
from the track

366
00:22:53,591 --> 00:22:56,794
induces a current
in the superconducting puck,

367
00:22:56,795 --> 00:23:00,497
which in turn creates an
opposite magnetic field

368
00:23:00,498 --> 00:23:02,766
that makes the puck levitate.

369
00:23:02,767 --> 00:23:04,401
It produces
a magnetic field

370
00:23:04,402 --> 00:23:06,770
like a north pole
against North Pole,

371
00:23:06,771 --> 00:23:09,039
and that's why you have
the repulsion.

372
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,109
(narrator)
As the puck warms up,

373
00:23:12,110 --> 00:23:14,144
its superconducting
properties vanish

374
00:23:14,145 --> 00:23:17,214
along with its
magnetically induced field.

375
00:23:17,215 --> 00:23:20,784
For decades after
its discovery in 1911,

376
00:23:20,785 --> 00:23:23,320
the underlying cause of
superconductivity

377
00:23:23,321 --> 00:23:25,356
remained a mystery.

378
00:23:25,357 --> 00:23:28,158
Every major physicist, every
major theoretical physicist

379
00:23:28,159 --> 00:23:30,594
had his own theory
of superconductivity.

380
00:23:30,595 --> 00:23:34,198
Everybody tried to solve it,
but it was unsuccessful.

381
00:23:37,102 --> 00:23:40,237
(narrator)
There were more surprises ahead.

382
00:23:40,238 --> 00:23:43,374
In the 1930s,
another strange phenomenon

383
00:23:43,375 --> 00:23:46,510
was observed
at even lower temperatures.

384
00:23:46,511 --> 00:23:49,680
This rapidly evaporating
liquid helium cools

385
00:23:49,681 --> 00:23:53,350
until at 2 degrees
above absolute zero,

386
00:23:53,351 --> 00:23:55,953
a dramatic transformation
takes place.

387
00:23:55,954 --> 00:23:59,590
(Allan Griffin)
Suddenly you see that
the bubbling stops

388
00:23:59,591 --> 00:24:02,826
and that the surface
of the liquid helium

389
00:24:02,827 --> 00:24:04,962
is completely still.

390
00:24:04,963 --> 00:24:06,930
The temperature is
actually being lowered

391
00:24:06,931 --> 00:24:09,533
even further now, but nothing
particularly is happening.

392
00:24:09,534 --> 00:24:12,469
Well, this is really one
of the great phenomenon

393
00:24:12,470 --> 00:24:14,138
in 20th-century physics.

394
00:24:14,139 --> 00:24:19,209
(narrator)
The liquid helium
had turned into a superfluid,

395
00:24:19,210 --> 00:24:22,513
which displays
some really odd properties.

396
00:24:22,514 --> 00:24:24,481
Here I have a beaker

397
00:24:24,482 --> 00:24:27,985
with an unglazed ceramic bottom
of ultrafine porosity.

398
00:24:27,986 --> 00:24:30,087
(narrator)
Ordinarily, this container

399
00:24:30,088 --> 00:24:33,824
with tiny pores
can hold liquid helium,

400
00:24:33,825 --> 00:24:39,096
but the moment the helium turns
superfluid, it leaks through.

401
00:24:39,097 --> 00:24:43,667
(man)
We call this kind
of flow a "superflow."

402
00:24:43,668 --> 00:24:47,404
(narrator)
Superfluid helium can do things

403
00:24:47,405 --> 00:24:50,574
we might have
believed impossible.

404
00:24:50,575 --> 00:24:53,677
It appears to defy gravity.

405
00:24:53,678 --> 00:24:58,515
A thin film can climb walls
and escape its container.

406
00:24:58,516 --> 00:25:02,419
This is because a superfluid
has zero viscosity.

407
00:25:02,420 --> 00:25:06,056
It can even produce a
frictionless fountain,

408
00:25:06,057 --> 00:25:08,625
one that never stops flowing.

409
00:25:08,626 --> 00:25:11,428
Superfluidity and
superconductivity

410
00:25:11,429 --> 00:25:14,698
were baffling concepts
for scientists.

411
00:25:14,699 --> 00:25:18,502
New radical theories were needed
to explain them.

412
00:25:22,474 --> 00:25:27,678
In the 1920s, quantum theory
was emerging as the best hope

413
00:25:27,679 --> 00:25:30,047
of understanding
these strange phenomenon.

414
00:25:30,048 --> 00:25:32,850
Its central idea was that atoms

415
00:25:32,851 --> 00:25:36,186
do not always behave
like individual particles.

416
00:25:36,187 --> 00:25:40,991
Sometimes they merge together
and behave like waves.

417
00:25:42,293 --> 00:25:47,297
They can also be particles
and waves at the same time.

418
00:25:47,298 --> 00:25:51,001
Even for great minds
like Albert Einstein,

419
00:25:51,002 --> 00:25:54,672
this strange paradox
was hard to accept.

420
00:25:54,673 --> 00:25:59,710
In 1925, a young Indian
physicist, Satyendra Bose,

421
00:25:59,711 --> 00:26:05,416
sent Einstein a paper
he'd been unable to publish.

422
00:26:05,417 --> 00:26:07,584
Bose had attempted to apply

423
00:26:07,585 --> 00:26:11,889
the mathematics of how light
particles behave to whole atoms.

424
00:26:11,890 --> 00:26:15,225
Einstein realized
the importance of this concept

425
00:26:15,226 --> 00:26:17,594
and did some
further calculations.

426
00:26:17,595 --> 00:26:21,398
He predicted that on reaching
extremely low temperatures,

427
00:26:21,399 --> 00:26:26,170
just a hair above absolute zero,
it might be possible

428
00:26:26,171 --> 00:26:31,375
to produce a new state of matter
that followed quantum rules.

429
00:26:31,376 --> 00:26:36,413
It would not be a solid
or liquid or gas.

430
00:26:36,414 --> 00:26:41,919
It was given a name almost
as strange as its properties--

431
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:45,389
a Bose-Einstein condensate.

432
00:26:45,390 --> 00:26:47,658
For the next 70 years,

433
00:26:47,659 --> 00:26:51,829
people could only dream
about making such a condensate,

434
00:26:51,830 --> 00:26:55,032
which has never been seen
in nature.

435
00:26:55,033 --> 00:26:57,534
Matter can exist
in various states.

436
00:26:57,535 --> 00:27:00,437
Atoms at high temperature
always form gases.

437
00:27:00,438 --> 00:27:04,141
If you cool the gas,
it becomes a liquid.

438
00:27:04,142 --> 00:27:07,544
If you cool the liquid,
it becomes a solid.

439
00:27:07,545 --> 00:27:09,213
But under certain circumstances,

440
00:27:09,214 --> 00:27:13,083
if you cool atoms far enough
to extremely low temperatures,

441
00:27:13,084 --> 00:27:15,352
they undergo
a very strange transformation.

442
00:27:15,353 --> 00:27:17,821
They undergo an identity crisis.

443
00:27:17,822 --> 00:27:21,058
So let me show you what I mean
by "an identity crisis."

444
00:27:21,059 --> 00:27:23,761
When you go to low
temperatures, the

445
00:27:23,762 --> 00:27:26,964
quantum mechanical properties
of the atoms become important.

446
00:27:26,965 --> 00:27:30,100
These are very strange,
very unfamiliar to us,

447
00:27:30,101 --> 00:27:33,270
but in fact, each one
of these atoms

448
00:27:33,271 --> 00:27:35,205
starts to display
wavelike properties.

449
00:27:35,206 --> 00:27:37,574
So instead of points like that,

450
00:27:37,575 --> 00:27:41,145
you have little wave packets,
like that, moving around.

451
00:27:41,146 --> 00:27:45,149
It's really difficult for me
to explain just why that is,

452
00:27:45,150 --> 00:27:47,284
but that's the way it is.

453
00:27:47,285 --> 00:27:50,187
Now, as you go
to very low temperatures,

454
00:27:50,188 --> 00:27:54,692
the size of these packets gets
longer and longer and longer.

455
00:27:54,693 --> 00:27:58,729
And then suddenly,
if you get them cold enough,

456
00:27:58,730 --> 00:28:01,932
they start overlapping,
and when they overlap,

457
00:28:01,933 --> 00:28:05,135
the system behaves
not like individual particles,

458
00:28:05,136 --> 00:28:08,305
but particles which have
lost their identity.

459
00:28:08,306 --> 00:28:10,574
They all think
they're everywhere.

460
00:28:10,575 --> 00:28:12,776
This little wave packet
over here can't tell

461
00:28:12,777 --> 00:28:15,479
whether it's this one
or that one or that one.

462
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:17,915
Or that one
or that one or that one.

463
00:28:17,916 --> 00:28:20,050
It's there, and it's
there, and it's there.

464
00:28:20,051 --> 00:28:22,886
They're all in one great big
quantum state.

465
00:28:22,887 --> 00:28:24,288
They're all overlapping.

466
00:28:24,289 --> 00:28:26,423
They're all doing
the same thing,

467
00:28:26,424 --> 00:28:29,660
and what they're doing,
to a good approximation is,

468
00:28:29,661 --> 00:28:31,495
they're simply
sitting at rest.

469
00:28:31,496 --> 00:28:33,197
This Bose-Einstein
condensate is

470
00:28:33,198 --> 00:28:35,866
very difficult to imagine
or to visualize.

471
00:28:35,867 --> 00:28:39,770
I could imagine what
it's like to be an atom

472
00:28:39,771 --> 00:28:42,439
running around gaily, freely,
bouncing into things,

473
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,775
sometimes going fast,
sometimes going slow,

474
00:28:44,776 --> 00:28:48,278
but in the Bose condensate,
I'm everywhere at once.

475
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:51,515
I've lost my identity.
I don't know who I am anymore.

476
00:28:51,516 --> 00:28:55,085
I'm at rest, and all the other
atoms around are at rest.

477
00:28:55,086 --> 00:28:57,121
But there are not
other atoms around.

478
00:28:57,122 --> 00:28:59,490
We're all just one
great big quantum system.

479
00:28:59,491 --> 00:29:02,426
There's nothing else
like that in physics

480
00:29:02,427 --> 00:29:04,995
and certainly not
in human experience.

481
00:29:04,996 --> 00:29:09,733
So just to think about this
causes me wonder and confusion.

482
00:29:17,309 --> 00:29:22,246
Dan Kleppner and his MIT
colleague Tom Greytak began

483
00:29:22,247 --> 00:29:27,117
to try to make a Bose-Einstein
condensate in hydrogen.

484
00:29:31,189 --> 00:29:35,592
(Dan Kleppner)
As we started out the search
for Bose-Einstein condensation,

485
00:29:35,593 --> 00:29:38,028
our enthusiasm grew
because hydrogen seemed

486
00:29:38,029 --> 00:29:40,864
like such
a wonderful atom to use.

487
00:29:40,865 --> 00:29:43,300
It had everything going for it.

488
00:29:43,301 --> 00:29:45,336
It had its light mass.

489
00:29:45,337 --> 00:29:47,538
That means that
the atoms will condense

490
00:29:47,539 --> 00:29:50,140
at a higher temperature
than other atoms would.

491
00:29:50,141 --> 00:29:53,043
The atoms interact with
each other very, very weakly.

492
00:29:53,044 --> 00:29:56,280
All the signals seem to be
pointing to the fact

493
00:29:56,281 --> 00:29:58,549
that hydrogen was the atom

494
00:29:58,550 --> 00:30:00,851
for getting
to Bose-Einstein condensation.

495
00:30:02,187 --> 00:30:05,489
(narrator)
Kleppner's idea was
to cool the hydrogen atoms

496
00:30:05,490 --> 00:30:08,058
by making use
of their magnetic poles.

497
00:30:08,059 --> 00:30:10,260
He used a strong magnetic field

498
00:30:10,261 --> 00:30:13,897
to create a cluster
of atoms in a cold trap.

499
00:30:13,898 --> 00:30:16,734
Unfortunately, sometimes
one atom flipped another,

500
00:30:16,735 --> 00:30:19,570
which triggered
a release of energy

501
00:30:19,571 --> 00:30:21,472
that raised the temperature.

502
00:30:23,675 --> 00:30:26,510
[sighs] It was
a frustrating time for us

503
00:30:26,511 --> 00:30:28,679
because our methods
were so complicated

504
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,548
we were having a hard time
moving forwards.

505
00:30:34,886 --> 00:30:38,622
(narrator)
Now others decided
to take up the challenge.

506
00:30:38,623 --> 00:30:41,992
Two physicists from MIT
met in Boulder, Colorado

507
00:30:41,993 --> 00:30:46,096
and came up with a different
approach to the problem.

508
00:30:46,097 --> 00:30:47,831
Rather than focusing on

509
00:30:47,832 --> 00:30:51,235
the lighter atoms
of the periodic table,

510
00:30:51,236 --> 00:30:54,204
they hit upon
the idea of using

511
00:30:54,205 --> 00:30:57,608
much heavier metallic atoms,
like rubidium and caesium.

512
00:30:57,609 --> 00:31:00,511
But would using
these giants enable them

513
00:31:00,512 --> 00:31:02,980
to reach closer
to absolute zero?

514
00:31:02,981 --> 00:31:05,449
The idea in the field
in those days was that

515
00:31:05,450 --> 00:31:07,951
the light things like hydrogen
and lithium would be easier,

516
00:31:07,952 --> 00:31:10,187
and there are some good
reasons for thinking that.

517
00:31:10,188 --> 00:31:11,889
But we had other ideas.

518
00:31:11,890 --> 00:31:16,293
Yeah, sort of gut intuition
in some sense.

519
00:31:16,294 --> 00:31:21,565
(narrator)
Their plan was to use
a laser beam to cool the atoms,

520
00:31:21,566 --> 00:31:25,970
a technique that had already
been tried by physicists at MIT.

521
00:31:25,971 --> 00:31:29,406
Lasers are usually associated
with making things hot,

522
00:31:29,407 --> 00:31:34,111
but if they are tuned
to the same frequency as atoms

523
00:31:34,112 --> 00:31:38,315
traveling at a particular speed,
lasers can cool them down.

524
00:31:41,219 --> 00:31:45,155
When the stream of
light particles from the laser

525
00:31:45,156 --> 00:31:48,625
hits the selected atoms
in the gas cloud,

526
00:31:48,626 --> 00:31:51,195
they slow down
and become cold.

527
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,936
Laser cooling was a new tool
that had the potential

528
00:31:58,937 --> 00:32:01,605
to reduce
the temperature of a gas

529
00:32:01,606 --> 00:32:05,809
to within a few millionths
of a degree of absolute zero.

530
00:32:09,981 --> 00:32:12,683
But Cornell and Weiman were not

531
00:32:12,684 --> 00:32:15,786
the only ones excited
by this prospect.

532
00:32:15,787 --> 00:32:18,889
A new scientist
had arrived at MIT.

533
00:32:20,725 --> 00:32:25,963
(Wolfgang Ketterle)
It was in late '91 or early '92
that we had an idea,

534
00:32:25,964 --> 00:32:29,133
an idea how a different
arrangement of laser beams

535
00:32:29,134 --> 00:32:32,303
would be able to cool atoms
to higher density.

536
00:32:32,304 --> 00:32:34,405
And it worked!

537
00:32:36,074 --> 00:32:38,242
And this was
really a trigger point.

538
00:32:38,243 --> 00:32:41,011
I will never forget the
excitement in those groups,

539
00:32:41,012 --> 00:32:43,847
group meetings, when we
discussed what will be next,

540
00:32:43,848 --> 00:32:45,549
because with higher density,

541
00:32:45,550 --> 00:32:47,751
there are
many things you can do.

542
00:32:47,752 --> 00:32:50,788
Could we now push
to Bose-Einstein condensation?

543
00:32:50,789 --> 00:32:54,224
I see, well, lots
of cables and electronics...

544
00:32:54,225 --> 00:32:58,062
(narrator)
All the resources of Ketterle's
lab were redirected

545
00:32:58,063 --> 00:33:01,065
to make a condensate
in sodium atoms.

546
00:33:01,066 --> 00:33:04,668
And right here, this
is an atomic beam oven.

547
00:33:04,669 --> 00:33:08,973
What is wrapped in tinfoil
is a little vacuum chamber

548
00:33:08,974 --> 00:33:11,342
where we heat up
metallic sodium,

549
00:33:11,343 --> 00:33:14,111
so the metallic sodium
melts and evaporates,

550
00:33:14,112 --> 00:33:16,447
and it's ultimately
the sodium vapor,

551
00:33:16,448 --> 00:33:20,050
the sodium atoms, which we tried
to Bose-Einstein condense.

552
00:33:25,623 --> 00:33:31,395
(narrator)
MIT, Boulder, and several other
labs were chasing the same goal.

553
00:33:31,396 --> 00:33:34,098
It had echoes of the race

554
00:33:34,099 --> 00:33:37,668
to produce liquid helium
almost a century earlier.

555
00:33:37,669 --> 00:33:41,639
(Eric Cornell)
As I tell my students today,

556
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:45,142
anything worth doing
is worth doing quickly,

557
00:33:45,143 --> 00:33:47,645
because science
moves on and...

558
00:33:47,646 --> 00:33:52,116
we're all mortal
and you want to do things.

559
00:33:52,117 --> 00:33:56,754
(narrator)
While MIT was installing
its sophisticated lasers,

560
00:33:56,755 --> 00:34:00,891
Carl Weiman's approach was
"small is beautiful".

561
00:34:00,892 --> 00:34:04,328
(Eric Cornell)
In some cases, he was
ripping open old fax machines

562
00:34:04,329 --> 00:34:06,397
and taking out
the little chip inside

563
00:34:06,398 --> 00:34:09,867
that made the laser and showed
that you could take these lasers

564
00:34:09,868 --> 00:34:12,469
and put them into a home-built
piece of apparatus,

565
00:34:12,470 --> 00:34:14,571
stabilize the laser,
and use them

566
00:34:14,572 --> 00:34:16,707
to do spectroscopy
and laser cooling.

567
00:34:16,708 --> 00:34:20,344
(Carl Weiman)
This is actually our first,

568
00:34:20,345 --> 00:34:23,881
what's called
a "vapor cell optical trap."

569
00:34:23,882 --> 00:34:26,617
You can see it's kind of
this old cruddy thing

570
00:34:26,618 --> 00:34:29,386
pulled together glass where we
could send laser beams in

571
00:34:29,387 --> 00:34:31,088
from all the different
directions

572
00:34:31,089 --> 00:34:34,658
and have just a little bit of
the atoms we wanted to cool.

573
00:34:37,062 --> 00:34:40,397
(narrator)
As well as bombarding
the atoms with lasers,

574
00:34:40,398 --> 00:34:43,701
they also trapped them
in a strong magnetic field.

575
00:34:45,537 --> 00:34:47,671
We would try this
sort of magnetic trap,

576
00:34:47,672 --> 00:34:50,140
that sort of magnetic trap,
this sort of imaging,

577
00:34:50,141 --> 00:34:52,309
that sort of imaging,
that sort of cooling.

578
00:34:52,310 --> 00:34:54,011
All those things we could do

579
00:34:54,012 --> 00:34:56,146
without building a whole
new chamber each time.

580
00:34:56,147 --> 00:34:58,716
We tried literally
4 different magnetic traps

581
00:34:58,717 --> 00:35:00,985
in 4 years
instead of having

582
00:35:00,986 --> 00:35:04,288
a 3 or 4-year construction
project for each one.

583
00:35:04,289 --> 00:35:06,957
(narrator)
By being fast and flexible,

584
00:35:06,958 --> 00:35:11,862
the Boulder group hoped to beat
their old lab at MIT,

585
00:35:11,863 --> 00:35:14,498
but MIT had its own plans.

586
00:35:17,102 --> 00:35:19,603
(Wolfgang Ketterle)
There was a sense
of competition,

587
00:35:19,604 --> 00:35:22,439
but it was what I would call
friendly competition.

588
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:24,475
I mean, can you imagine
2 athletes;

589
00:35:24,476 --> 00:35:26,443
they are in
the same training camps,

590
00:35:26,444 --> 00:35:29,580
they help each other, they even
give tips to each other,

591
00:35:29,581 --> 00:35:31,882
but then when it comes
to the race,

592
00:35:31,883 --> 00:35:33,617
everybody wants to be the first.

593
00:35:36,855 --> 00:35:39,223
The rival groups
were both using

594
00:35:39,224 --> 00:35:42,393
magnetic trapping and lasers
to cool their atoms,

595
00:35:42,394 --> 00:35:45,562
but for the final push
towards absolute zero

596
00:35:45,563 --> 00:35:47,965
to turn these atoms of gas

597
00:35:47,966 --> 00:35:50,701
into the quantum state
Einstein had predicted,

598
00:35:50,702 --> 00:35:55,739
they needed one more cooling
technique-- evaporative cooling.

599
00:35:55,740 --> 00:35:59,276
It's just like with this coffee;
the steam coming off the coffee

600
00:35:59,277 --> 00:36:01,345
is the hottest
of the coffee molecules

601
00:36:01,346 --> 00:36:04,581
escaping and carrying away more
than their fair share of energy.

602
00:36:04,582 --> 00:36:07,418
In the case of the atoms,
we keep the atoms in

603
00:36:07,419 --> 00:36:10,254
a sort of magnetic bowl,
and we confine the atoms there.

604
00:36:10,255 --> 00:36:13,090
They zoom around inside the
bowl, and then the hottest ones

605
00:36:13,091 --> 00:36:15,926
have enough energy to roll up
the side of the bowl

606
00:36:15,927 --> 00:36:18,228
and fall over the edge,
slop over the edge,

607
00:36:18,229 --> 00:36:21,332
taking away with them much more
than their fair share of energy.

608
00:36:21,333 --> 00:36:24,335
And the atoms that remain have
less and less energy,

609
00:36:24,336 --> 00:36:26,403
which means they move
slower and slower

610
00:36:26,404 --> 00:36:28,505
and start to cluster
near the bottom.

611
00:36:28,506 --> 00:36:30,207
And as that happens,

612
00:36:30,208 --> 00:36:32,843
we gradually lower the edges
of the magnetic trap

613
00:36:32,844 --> 00:36:36,180
and always so there's just
a few atoms that can escape,

614
00:36:36,181 --> 00:36:37,915
until finally
the remaining atoms cluster

615
00:36:37,916 --> 00:36:40,317
near the bottle of the bowl,
huddle together,

616
00:36:40,318 --> 00:36:43,420
they get colder and colder
and denser and denser

617
00:36:43,421 --> 00:36:45,856
and eventually in this way,
evaporation forces

618
00:36:45,857 --> 00:36:47,591
the Bose-Einstein
condensation to occur.

619
00:36:54,232 --> 00:36:57,001
(narrator)
The race to produce

620
00:36:57,002 --> 00:36:59,803
a Bose-Einstein condensate
was intensifying.

621
00:36:59,804 --> 00:37:01,972
At every major meeting,

622
00:37:01,973 --> 00:37:05,809
Eric Cornell and I gave talks
or talked to each other.

623
00:37:05,810 --> 00:37:08,212
We were keenly aware
that we were

624
00:37:08,213 --> 00:37:10,280
both working
towards the same goal.

625
00:37:10,281 --> 00:37:15,419
(narrator)
In June 1995, the Boulder group
was working 'round the clock

626
00:37:15,420 --> 00:37:18,422
knowing that MIT
and several other labs

627
00:37:18,423 --> 00:37:21,825
were also poised to produce
the first condensate.

628
00:37:21,826 --> 00:37:24,695
An official visit from a
government-funding agency

629
00:37:24,696 --> 00:37:27,197
was the last thing they needed.

630
00:37:27,198 --> 00:37:29,300
We didn't want to
close down the lab

631
00:37:29,301 --> 00:37:31,702
or clean up our lab
or put up posters.

632
00:37:31,703 --> 00:37:33,404
We wanted to
work very hard.

633
00:37:33,405 --> 00:37:36,607
So the senior dignitaries
in the 3-piece suits and so on

634
00:37:36,608 --> 00:37:39,276
came into the lab,
and we left the lights off,

635
00:37:39,277 --> 00:37:40,911
and everyone
continued to work,

636
00:37:40,912 --> 00:37:43,047
and I made them keep
their voices down.

637
00:37:43,048 --> 00:37:45,215
And talked to them
rather in a hurried way

638
00:37:45,216 --> 00:37:47,318
and then sort of
shuffled them out the door,

639
00:37:47,319 --> 00:37:49,920
and they all had a slightly
puzzled look on their face

640
00:37:49,921 --> 00:37:52,056
'cause it probably had never
happened to them before

641
00:37:52,057 --> 00:37:53,957
in their history of being
a visiting committee,

642
00:37:53,958 --> 00:37:58,362
that they were treated with
as little...little pomp.

643
00:37:58,363 --> 00:38:01,632
And later, I actually met
one of the guys who said,

644
00:38:01,633 --> 00:38:03,767
I suspected something
was up that day

645
00:38:03,768 --> 00:38:06,437
because otherwise you never
would've dared to do that.

646
00:38:06,438 --> 00:38:08,539
(narrator) June the 5th, 1995

647
00:38:08,540 --> 00:38:13,744
turned out to be a big day
in the history of physics.

648
00:38:13,745 --> 00:38:18,115
The Boulder group seemed to
have made what Einstein had

649
00:38:18,116 --> 00:38:21,118
theorized 70 years before--
a Bose-Einstein condensate.

650
00:38:21,119 --> 00:38:25,723
Our first reaction was wait, we
gotta be careful here, you know.

651
00:38:25,724 --> 00:38:29,593
Let's think of all the different
knobs we can turn,

652
00:38:29,594 --> 00:38:32,997
checks we can make and so on

653
00:38:32,998 --> 00:38:36,934
to see if this really is
Bose-Einstein condensation.

654
00:38:49,014 --> 00:38:51,815
(Eric Cornell)
A condensate is
sort of like a vampire.

655
00:38:51,816 --> 00:38:54,652
If the sunlight even once
falls on it, it's dead,

656
00:38:54,653 --> 00:38:57,721
and so it its realm
is the realm of the dark.

657
00:38:57,722 --> 00:38:59,723
But we can take
pictures of them

658
00:38:59,724 --> 00:39:02,026
because we strobe
the laser light really fast,

659
00:39:02,027 --> 00:39:04,895
and even as the condensate's
dying, it casts a shadow,

660
00:39:04,896 --> 00:39:07,231
and the shadow is
frozen in the film.

661
00:39:07,232 --> 00:39:11,669
(narrator)
At a temperature of
170 billionth of a degree

662
00:39:11,670 --> 00:39:14,838
above absolute zero,
Weiman and Cornell created

663
00:39:14,839 --> 00:39:18,409
a pure Bose-Einstein condensate
in a gas cloud

664
00:39:18,410 --> 00:39:21,145
of just 3000 atoms
of rubidium,

665
00:39:21,146 --> 00:39:26,116
the first in the universe,
as far as we know.

666
00:39:26,117 --> 00:39:29,320
One of the first things
you need to understand

667
00:39:29,321 --> 00:39:32,990
about Bose-Einstein condensation
is how very, very cold it is.

668
00:39:32,991 --> 00:39:35,125
Where we live,
at room temperature,

669
00:39:35,126 --> 00:39:37,995
is far above absolute zero
in the scale.

670
00:39:37,996 --> 00:39:40,764
Imagine that room temperature
is represented by London,

671
00:39:40,765 --> 00:39:42,533
thousands of kilometers
from here.

672
00:39:42,534 --> 00:39:45,669
Then on that scale, if we
imagine right here

673
00:39:45,670 --> 00:39:48,472
where I'm standing in Boulder
is absolute zero,

674
00:39:48,473 --> 00:39:50,107
the coldest possible
temperature,

675
00:39:50,108 --> 00:39:52,876
then how close are we
to absolute zero?

676
00:39:52,877 --> 00:39:56,413
If we think of London
as being room temperature

677
00:39:56,414 --> 00:39:59,583
and right where I am
is absolute zero,

678
00:39:59,584 --> 00:40:01,518
then Bose-Einstein
condensation occurs just

679
00:40:01,519 --> 00:40:05,456
the thickness of this pencil
lead away from absolute zero.

680
00:40:08,526 --> 00:40:11,862
(narrator) Within months of
the Boulder group's success,

681
00:40:11,863 --> 00:40:15,199
Wolfgang Ketterle produced
an even larger condensate

682
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,568
from half a million sodium atoms

683
00:40:17,569 --> 00:40:20,404
slowed down to a virtual
standstill,

684
00:40:20,405 --> 00:40:23,273
causing their wave functions
to overlap

685
00:40:23,274 --> 00:40:27,044
to produce an entirely new
state of matter.

686
00:40:28,213 --> 00:40:30,114
At last quantum mechanics

687
00:40:30,115 --> 00:40:33,384
was more than just
a theoretical construct.

688
00:40:33,385 --> 00:40:38,522
It was something that could be
seen with the naked eye.

689
00:40:38,523 --> 00:40:43,327
Cornell, Ketterle & Weiman

690
00:40:43,328 --> 00:40:48,365
shared the Nobel Prize
for physics in 2001.

691
00:40:48,366 --> 00:40:51,602
(Carl Weiman)
One of the things
Nobel Prize means

692
00:40:51,603 --> 00:40:53,337
and the ceremony means is

693
00:40:53,338 --> 00:40:55,506
that everybody remembers
Eric's the person

694
00:40:55,507 --> 00:40:58,008
who forgot
to bow to the king!

695
00:40:58,009 --> 00:41:01,578
There was a breakdown
of protocol on my part.

696
00:41:01,579 --> 00:41:04,315
There was no excuse because
they actually drill us.

697
00:41:04,316 --> 00:41:07,084
It's more like a--we have
a series of rehearsals

698
00:41:07,085 --> 00:41:10,387
practicing how to bow to the
king, and I somehow managed

699
00:41:10,388 --> 00:41:13,123
to bollocks it up at
the last possible moment.

700
00:41:13,124 --> 00:41:15,559
And I thought maybe,
you know,

701
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:20,497
Carl who came after me would do
this, make the same mistake,

702
00:41:20,498 --> 00:41:25,836
and then no one would figure it
out, but no, he was perfect.

703
00:41:30,642 --> 00:41:34,011
(Wolfgang Ketterle)
I heard about the Nobel Prize
when I was

704
00:41:34,012 --> 00:41:35,913
woken up by a telephone call,

705
00:41:35,914 --> 00:41:38,649
which was at, I think,
5:30 in the morning.

706
00:41:38,650 --> 00:41:41,452
So you wake up, you go
to the telephone,

707
00:41:41,453 --> 00:41:43,087
and somebody tells you,
"Congratulations,

708
00:41:43,088 --> 00:41:44,955
you have won the Nobel Prize."

709
00:41:44,956 --> 00:41:49,126
You're still tired, your brain
is not fully functional,

710
00:41:49,127 --> 00:41:51,862
but you realize this is big

711
00:41:51,863 --> 00:41:55,566
and what you feel is,
you know, pride,

712
00:41:55,567 --> 00:41:58,802
pride for MIT, your
collaborators, for yourself.

713
00:41:58,803 --> 00:42:02,673
It's wonderful to see that
your work gets recognized

714
00:42:02,674 --> 00:42:04,775
and acknowledged in this way.

715
00:42:07,245 --> 00:42:09,713
(narrator)
Like any great adventure,

716
00:42:09,714 --> 00:42:14,084
the pursuit of science offers
no guarantee of success.

717
00:42:14,085 --> 00:42:18,022
But for the godfather
of ultra cold atoms,

718
00:42:18,023 --> 00:42:19,923
persistence eventually paid off.

719
00:42:19,924 --> 00:42:23,827
In 1998, after 20 years
of struggling

720
00:42:23,828 --> 00:42:27,231
to obtain a condensate
in hydrogen,

721
00:42:27,232 --> 00:42:29,466
Dan Kleppner finally succeeded.

722
00:42:29,467 --> 00:42:34,838
For a few fleeting moments,
his dream came true.

723
00:42:34,839 --> 00:42:37,007
(Daniel Kleppner)
Of course, we were delighted,

724
00:42:37,008 --> 00:42:38,909
and I think everyone
was delighted

725
00:42:38,910 --> 00:42:41,712
because we'd been working
on it for so long.

726
00:42:41,713 --> 00:42:44,214
It's kind of embarrassing to
have this group,

727
00:42:44,215 --> 00:42:47,351
which helped start the work
and was working away there,

728
00:42:47,352 --> 00:42:49,219
fruitlessly, while everyone
was enjoying success.

729
00:42:49,220 --> 00:42:51,422
When we got it,
everyone was happy.

730
00:42:51,423 --> 00:42:57,728
(Wolfgang Ketterle)
To see that an effort,
which lasted for 20 years,

731
00:42:57,729 --> 00:43:01,899
which took so much patience,
frustration and tenacity,

732
00:43:01,900 --> 00:43:07,504
to see that succeed is just
emotional. It's liberating.

733
00:43:07,505 --> 00:43:10,641
I will never forget
the standing ovation,

734
00:43:10,642 --> 00:43:14,712
which Dan Kleppner received at
the Verena Summer School

735
00:43:14,713 --> 00:43:17,848
when he announced Bose-Einstein
condensation in hydrogen.

736
00:43:17,849 --> 00:43:20,651
Everybody just got up and gave--
it was

737
00:43:20,652 --> 00:43:23,821
sort of like an opera where
everybody just cheered,

738
00:43:23,822 --> 00:43:26,590
[with emotion] and people were
crying, because everybody

739
00:43:26,591 --> 00:43:30,094
realized that they had finished
the race, but too late,

740
00:43:30,095 --> 00:43:33,263
and it wasn't gonna work out,
but in some sense,

741
00:43:33,264 --> 00:43:35,466
they had really stimulated
the whole field.

742
00:43:35,467 --> 00:43:38,636
So it was a very, very moving,
very moving moment.

743
00:43:38,637 --> 00:43:43,173
(narrator)
For the pioneers who had
realized Einstein's dream

744
00:43:43,174 --> 00:43:45,709
and created condensates, it was

745
00:43:45,710 --> 00:43:49,747
the end of an extraordinary
decade of physics.

746
00:43:49,748 --> 00:43:52,049
Now, there was
a new challenge--

747
00:43:52,050 --> 00:43:55,152
to work out
what to do with them.

748
00:43:57,489 --> 00:44:01,091
At Harvard, a Danish scientist,
Lene Hau,

749
00:44:01,092 --> 00:44:06,830
had the idea of using a
condensate to slow down light.

750
00:44:09,634 --> 00:44:13,904
We all have this sense, you
know, light is something that--

751
00:44:13,905 --> 00:44:16,674
nothing goes faster than light,
in vacuum,

752
00:44:16,675 --> 00:44:20,210
and if somehow we could use
this system

753
00:44:20,211 --> 00:44:24,581
to get light down to,
you know, to a human level,

754
00:44:24,582 --> 00:44:27,318
I thought that was just
absolutely fascinating.

755
00:44:34,459 --> 00:44:37,895
(narrator)
Lene Hau created a cigar-shaped
Bose-Einstein condensate

756
00:44:37,896 --> 00:44:40,030
to carry out her experiment.

757
00:44:40,031 --> 00:44:43,467
She fired a light pulse
into the cloud.

758
00:44:43,468 --> 00:44:47,538
The speed of light is around
186,000 miles per second,

759
00:44:47,539 --> 00:44:50,374
but when the pulse
hits the condensate,

760
00:44:50,375 --> 00:44:54,011
it slows down
to the speed of a bicycle.

761
00:44:54,012 --> 00:44:56,313
(Lene Hau)
So light pulse might start out

762
00:44:56,314 --> 00:44:58,816
being 1 to 2 miles long
in free space,

763
00:44:58,817 --> 00:45:00,517
it goes into our medium,

764
00:45:00,518 --> 00:45:03,320
and since the front edge enters
first that will slow down.

765
00:45:03,321 --> 00:45:06,290
The back end is still in free
space, that'll catch up,

766
00:45:06,291 --> 00:45:09,493
and that'll create that
compression.

767
00:45:09,494 --> 00:45:12,162
And it'll end up being
compressed

768
00:45:12,163 --> 00:45:16,133
from 1 to 2 miles down
to 0.001 micron

769
00:45:16,134 --> 00:45:17,801
or even smaller than that.

770
00:45:17,802 --> 00:45:20,070
You could say well, gee,
it's easy to stop light

771
00:45:20,071 --> 00:45:22,539
because I could just send
a laser beam into a wall

772
00:45:22,540 --> 00:45:24,341
and I would stop it.

773
00:45:25,877 --> 00:45:28,579
Well, the problem is,
you lose the information

774
00:45:28,580 --> 00:45:30,314
because it turns into heat.

775
00:45:30,315 --> 00:45:32,683
You can never get that
information back.

776
00:45:32,684 --> 00:45:36,787
In our case, when we stop it,
the information is not lost

777
00:45:36,788 --> 00:45:38,822
because that's stored
in the medium,

778
00:45:38,823 --> 00:45:40,591
then we have time
to revive it,

779
00:45:40,592 --> 00:45:42,292
the system has
all the information

780
00:45:42,293 --> 00:45:44,895
to revive the light pulse,
and it can move on.

781
00:45:46,765 --> 00:45:51,602
(narrator)
One day, ultra cold atoms
will probably be used

782
00:45:51,603 --> 00:45:54,505
to store
and even process information.

783
00:45:54,506 --> 00:45:57,374
Even now,
cold atoms are being

784
00:45:57,375 --> 00:45:59,777
turned into prototype
quantum computers.

785
00:45:59,778 --> 00:46:04,081
(Seth Lloyd)
As a quantum mechanic,
I engineer atoms.

786
00:46:04,082 --> 00:46:10,587
To make a computer out of atoms,
you have to somehow get atoms

787
00:46:10,588 --> 00:46:14,625
to register information
and then to process it.

788
00:46:14,626 --> 00:46:16,293
Why build quantum computers?

789
00:46:16,294 --> 00:46:21,098
Because they're cool, it's fun,
and we can do it. Right?

790
00:46:21,099 --> 00:46:24,101
I mean, we actually can
take atoms

791
00:46:24,102 --> 00:46:27,538
and if we ask them nicely,
they'll compute.

792
00:46:27,539 --> 00:46:30,040
That's a lot of fun.
I mean, have you ever

793
00:46:30,041 --> 00:46:33,110
talked to an atom recently and
had it talk back? It's great!

794
00:46:33,111 --> 00:46:36,914
(narrator)
Unlike ordinary computers
where each decision is based

795
00:46:36,915 --> 00:46:42,419
around a bit of information
and is either a zero or a one,

796
00:46:42,420 --> 00:46:45,356
in the quantum world,
the rules change.

797
00:46:45,357 --> 00:46:48,125
At first glance,
a quantum computer

798
00:46:48,126 --> 00:46:50,394
looks almost exactly the same.

799
00:46:50,395 --> 00:46:52,730
But quantum mechanics
is weird.

800
00:46:52,731 --> 00:46:54,999
It's funky, okay?
It's weird.

801
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,401
(Peter Shor)
When you do quantum computing,

802
00:46:57,402 --> 00:47:00,437
you want to make
this weirdness work for you.

803
00:47:00,438 --> 00:47:03,374
So now let's look at our
quantum bit or Q bit.

804
00:47:03,375 --> 00:47:07,411
The Q bit can not only be a zero
or a one, it can also both be...

805
00:47:07,412 --> 00:47:10,981
A zero and one
(both) at the same time.

806
00:47:10,982 --> 00:47:12,716
It's almost like a form
of parallel computation,

807
00:47:12,717 --> 00:47:15,052
If you look at
the mini worlds
but in the parallel computer,

808
00:47:15,053 --> 00:47:17,354
interpretation
of a quantum computer,
one processor does this,
one processor does that,

809
00:47:17,355 --> 00:47:19,523
your quantum computer
so you have 2 processors
doing this and that.

810
00:47:19,524 --> 00:47:21,225
is doing many,
In a quantum computer,
you have

811
00:47:21,226 --> 00:47:22,993
many computations
only one processor doing

812
00:47:22,994 --> 00:47:25,195
all at the same time.
this and that
at the same time.

813
00:47:26,765 --> 00:47:29,366
[both laugh]

814
00:47:32,237 --> 00:47:33,871
(narrator)
Today, computers are limited

815
00:47:33,872 --> 00:47:36,607
in the amount of information
they can handle

816
00:47:36,608 --> 00:47:39,276
by the heat
and number of the circuits.

817
00:47:39,277 --> 00:47:43,747
Here, within a giant Dewar Flask

818
00:47:43,748 --> 00:47:46,917
lies a prototype
quantum computer

819
00:47:46,918 --> 00:47:50,754
surrounded by its supercooled,
superconducting magnet.

820
00:47:50,755 --> 00:47:55,292
In the future, quantum computing
could be used to predict

821
00:47:55,293 --> 00:47:57,161
incredibly complex
quantum interactions,

822
00:47:57,162 --> 00:48:01,699
such as how a new drug acts
on faulty biochemistry.

823
00:48:04,269 --> 00:48:07,638
Or to solve
complex encryption problems,

824
00:48:07,639 --> 00:48:09,573
like decoding prime numbers

825
00:48:09,574 --> 00:48:12,977
that are the key
to Internet security.

826
00:48:15,213 --> 00:48:18,549
Already, supercooled quantum
devices are mapping

827
00:48:18,550 --> 00:48:21,919
the magnetic activity
of the brain.

828
00:48:24,322 --> 00:48:27,992
Often, the promised benefits
from a scientific breakthrough

829
00:48:27,993 --> 00:48:30,794
take a long time to emerge.

830
00:48:30,795 --> 00:48:33,597
Many predicted that
by this century,

831
00:48:33,598 --> 00:48:36,400
energy saving superconducting
power lines

832
00:48:36,401 --> 00:48:38,268
and maglev bullet trains

833
00:48:38,269 --> 00:48:40,571
would be crisscrossing
the continents.

834
00:48:40,572 --> 00:48:44,608
Perhaps as world energy supplies
decline, these technologies,

835
00:48:44,609 --> 00:48:49,580
once seen as too costly,
will start to take off.

836
00:48:49,581 --> 00:48:54,018
This weird quantum world is
part of a new frontier

837
00:48:54,019 --> 00:48:57,588
opened up by the descent
towards absolute zero.

838
00:49:06,197 --> 00:49:10,267
It's been a remarkable journey
for scientists

839
00:49:10,268 --> 00:49:12,369
into unknown territories

840
00:49:12,370 --> 00:49:16,640
far beyond
the narrow confines of earth.

841
00:49:16,641 --> 00:49:21,478
On the Kelvin temperature scale,
which begins at absolute zero,

842
00:49:21,479 --> 00:49:25,883
the temperature of the sun
is around 5000 Kelvin.

843
00:49:27,285 --> 00:49:30,988
At 1000 Kelvin, metals melt.

844
00:49:30,989 --> 00:49:37,061
At 300, we reach what we think
of as room temperature.

845
00:49:37,062 --> 00:49:41,265
Air liquefies at 100 Kelvin,

846
00:49:41,266 --> 00:49:46,637
hydrogen at 20,
helium at 4 Kelvin.

847
00:49:46,638 --> 00:49:51,875
The deepest outer space is
3 degrees above absolute zero.

848
00:49:55,513 --> 00:49:58,315
But the descent
doesn't stop there.

849
00:49:58,316 --> 00:50:00,017
With ultra cold refrigerators,

850
00:50:00,018 --> 00:50:02,853
the decimal point
shifts 3 places

851
00:50:02,854 --> 00:50:05,656
to a few 1000ths of a degree,

852
00:50:05,657 --> 00:50:07,791
and laser cooling takes it down

853
00:50:07,792 --> 00:50:11,061
3 more places
to a millionth of a degree,

854
00:50:11,062 --> 00:50:13,030
the temperature of

855
00:50:13,031 --> 00:50:14,565
a Bose-Einstein condensate.

856
00:50:14,566 --> 00:50:16,533
With magnetic cooling,

857
00:50:16,534 --> 00:50:19,603
we shift 4 more decimal places

858
00:50:19,604 --> 00:50:21,271
until we reach the coldest

859
00:50:21,272 --> 00:50:22,673
recorded temperature

860
00:50:22,674 --> 00:50:24,041
in the universe,

861
00:50:24,042 --> 00:50:26,143
created at a lab in Helsinki,

862
00:50:26,144 --> 00:50:29,279
100 pico Kelvin,

863
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:34,251
or a 10th of a billionth
of a degree above absolute zero.

864
00:50:34,252 --> 00:50:39,857
So will it ever be
possible to go all the way,

865
00:50:39,858 --> 00:50:44,461
to reach the Holy Grail of cold,
zero Kelvin?

866
00:50:44,462 --> 00:50:48,966
(Seth Lloyd)
Getting to absolute zero
is tough. [laughs]

867
00:50:48,967 --> 00:50:52,403
Nobody's actually been there
at absolute 0.000000...

868
00:50:52,404 --> 00:50:54,872
with an infinite number 0s.

869
00:50:54,873 --> 00:50:57,174
That last little
tiny bit of heat

870
00:50:57,175 --> 00:51:00,411
becomes harder and harder
to get out, and in particular,

871
00:51:00,412 --> 00:51:02,313
the time scales
for getting it out

872
00:51:02,314 --> 00:51:04,281
get longer and longer
and longer

873
00:51:04,282 --> 00:51:07,184
the smaller and smaller
the amounts of energy involved.

874
00:51:07,185 --> 00:51:09,486
So eventually, if you're
talking about extracting

875
00:51:09,487 --> 00:51:11,789
an amount of energy
that's sufficiently small,

876
00:51:11,790 --> 00:51:15,726
it would indeed take the age
of the universe to do it.

877
00:51:15,727 --> 00:51:17,695
Also, actually, you'd
need an apparatus

878
00:51:17,696 --> 00:51:22,166
the size of the universe to do
it, but that's another story!

879
00:51:22,167 --> 00:51:25,336
(narrator)
Absolute zero may be
unreachable,

880
00:51:25,337 --> 00:51:28,539
but by exploring
further and further

881
00:51:28,540 --> 00:51:31,709
towards this ultimate
destination of cold,

882
00:51:31,710 --> 00:51:36,580
the most fundamental secrets
of matter have been revealed.

883
00:51:36,581 --> 00:51:41,585
If our past was defined
by our mastery of heat,

884
00:51:41,586 --> 00:51:46,590
perhaps our future lies in
the continuing conquest of cold.

885
00:51:48,586 --> 00:52:05,590
Text : WTC-SWE