The Science of Light

Odile Jacob Publishing to release The Science of Light, a captivating journey of scientific discovery by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Serge Haroche. The Science of Light will be available for purchase worldwide in digital formats starting on Thursday, March 24, 2022, at odilejacob. com and on all retail platforms. Serge Haroche is professor emeritus at the Collège de France, a member of the Académie des Sciences, a foreign member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, and winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering methods of manipulating and measuring individual quantum systems. He has taught at Paris VI University, the École Polytechnique, the École Normale Supérieure, Harvard University, and Yale University.   Serge HarocheNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Science of LightFrom Galileo’s Telescope to Quantum Physics Light has fascinated mankind since the dawn of time. Elucidating its properties over the centuries has been an adventure intimately linked with the birth and development of modern science; it has led, after many surprising twists, to the theories of relativity and quantum physics which have profoundly changed our view of the world at the microscopic and cosmic scales alike. Placing his own career in a rich lineage of scientific discovery, Nobel Prize–winning physicist Serge Haroche offers a literally enlightening account of what we know about light today, how we learned it, and how that knowledge has led to countless inventions that have revolutionized daily life. From Galileo and Newton to Einstein and Feynman, from early measurements of the speed of light to cutting-edge work on quantum entanglement, Haroche takes a detailed and personal look at light’s role in how we see and understand the universe. The Science of Light is at once a colorful history of scientific inquiry and a passionate defense of “blue sky research”—investigations conducted not in pursuit of a particular goal, but out of curiosity and faith that today’s abstract discoveries may well power tomorrow’s most incredible possibilities. A uniquely captivating book about the thrill of discovery.  Contents FOREWORD  13 CHAPTER 1: The dawn of a vocation  21First passions: from mathematics to astronomy  23Introduction to modern physics  35Shut up and calculate!  47When atoms and photons are spinning tops: optical pumping  50To see the world as something rich and strange  65An apprenticeship in trust and freedom  77Promises of the laser  81Beginnings in research  85First trip to America and return to my first passion  90“Blue sky” research  93 CHAPTER 2: Reflections in the Observatory square  97Two instruments at the origins of the scientific revolution: the refracting telescope and the pendulum clock  100Measuring the speed of light to survey the universe  106The science of light becomes quantitative: Descartes and Dioptrics  113Nature works by the shortest and simplest ways: Fermat’s principle  118Huygens and the wave theory of light  124Newton, light particles, and color  134Measuring the shape of the Earth  143A passion for precision  156Basic science, business, power, and technology  161 CHAPTER 3: Daydreams in Faraday’s laboratory  165Young v. Newton  169Light is polarized  175Fresnel and the triumph of the waves  177Combining vectors and interfering waves  181A rotating vibration: circular polarization  187Light illuminated by mathematics  193Back to the speed of light  198From the salons of the Enlightenment to Faraday’s laboratory  208Birth of the concept of field  218The confluence of light, electricity, and magnetism  223Some mysteries disappear but others remain  229 CHAPTER 4: The two clouds of Lord Kelvin  239Michelson and the puzzle of the aether  245Einstein comes on the scene: thought experiments  249A relativistic change of perspective  261Space mixes with time  266Mass and energy combine: E = mc2  272Einstein’s “happiest” idea comes from Galileo again  283Gravitation and curvature of space-time  291Relativistic predictions and postdictions  299 CHAPTER 5: Light reveals the strange world of quanta  311The ultraviolet catastrophe  314Light between waves and particles  318Quanta are generalized to matter  322Gregarious photons and atoms that mimic them  329The veil is lifted on matter waves  334Wave function, quantum states,  and the superposition principle  339The particle family expands  342A fundamental identity  347The Pandora’s box of quantum physics  352From classical to quantum: a dialogue across centuries between Fermat, Maupertuis, and Feynman  355A journey in orders of magnitude  360The quantum scene: individual objects  or statistical ensembles?  365Young’s double slit revisited  368Measurement, complementarity, and uncertainty relations  371Debates around imaginary experiments  380Quantum entanglement  389Schrödinger’s cat and the classical–quantum boundary  399 CHAPTER 6: Lasers, photons, and giant atoms  407An atom dressed by photons  408Introduction to lasers in California  417Beating the Doppler effect  425Quantum beats  434Californian anecdotes  439First major international conference  442The terra incognita of giant atoms  445The birth of cavity quantum electrodynamics  456Research and teaching on both sides of the Atlantic  463The laser cooling revolution  468Trapped ions and quantum jumps  479 CHAPTER 7: Taming Schrödinger’s cat  489The photon box  494The circular atom  498Quantum ping-pong  504Quantum knitting  507How to see photons without destroying them  510Life and death of a photon  514Back to Young’s moving slit experiment  523Counting photons and observing quantum jumps  526Quantum field radiography  538Schrödinger’s cats of light  547Exploring the quantum-to-classical boundary  559Toward a quantum computer: utopia or future reality?  570Feynman’s dream: quantum simulation  575Spooky action at a distance, quantum cryptography,  and quantum teleportation  578Quantum metrology and optical clocks  582 POSTFACE: Science and truth  593 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Some works to complement the reading of this book  599 INDEX OF CITED SCIENTISTS  605 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  613