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Thank You Professor WEE!
Associate Professor Andrew WEE, Department of Physics, NUS on
This year marks the centenary of Einstein’s miraculous year in 1905. In little more than 8 months that year, he completed 5 papers that would change the scientific world for ever. Spanning 3 distinct topics - relativity, the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion - Einstein overturned our view of space and time, showed that it is insufficient to describe light purely as a wave, and laid the foundations for the discovery of atoms.
Remarkably, Einstein's 1905 papers were based neither on hard experimental evidence nor sophisticated mathematics. Instead, he presented elegant arguments and conclusions based on physical intuition.
This public talk describe Einstein’s remarkable achievements in 1905, and in particular highlight the impact that the photoelectric effect – for which he was awarded the 1921 Physics Nobel Prize – has had in modern technology.
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Assistant Professor SOW Chorng Haur, Department of Physics, NUS on
Scientists often describe our natural world in terms of particles. In particular, matter is described in terms of atoms and molecules. These particles cannot be resolved by the naked eye or even an optical microscope. So, what do atoms and molecules really look like? How do scientists attempt to understand how they look like? How do atoms and molecules really behave on the nanometer scale? The speaker will take us on a refreshingly honest tour of the ‘nano-world’ and the triumphs of science in exploring that world. This lecture, peppered with demonstrations and personal accounts, is targeted at the layperson and the beginning scientist.
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Associate Professor Belal E BAAQUIE, Department of Physics, NUS on
High energy experiments have shown that all of matter is composed of elementary particles, of which the electron is the most well known example. The quantum principle shows that forces between elementary particles are caused by another class of particles. For example, the electromagnetic force between electrons is carried or mediated by photons. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity - in which the force of gravity is the manifestation of the geometry of spacetime - is the only force that does not obey the quantum principle. Superstring Theory is a quantum theory in which all the elementary particles and all the forces of nature are the excitations of a single underlying entity, namely the superstring. The geometry of spacetime is also an excitation of the superstring. Superstring Theory realises the age-old dream of physicists of unifying all forms of physical reality, which are seen to be the manifestations of superstrings.
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Assistant Professor KWEK Leong Chuan, NSSE, NIE on
Classical physics deals with phenomena associated with macroscopic ("big") objects. To understand how things behave at the microscopic level, we need to apply quantum physics. Conventional or classical information theory is firmly rooted in classical physics. However, it turns out that quantum physics allows us to tap the full potential of physical reality for information processing purposes.
Quantum information is very different from its everyday classical counterpart: it cannot be read without disturbance, nor can it be clone or broadcast. Quantum physics uses entanglement and superposition of quantum states to perform feats that neither classical and quantum information alone can achieve. Examples are quantum cryptography, quantum computing and quantum teleportation.
In this talk, we will explore the wonders of this new science and relate how Einstein had indirectly contributed to its development.
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