William Daniel Phillips

William Daniel Phillips

Phillips at the 2012 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
Born (1948-11-05) November 5, 1948
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Nationality United States
Fields Physics
Institutions NIST
University of Maryland, College Park
Alma mater MIT
Juniata College
Known for Laser cooling
Notable awards Nobel Prize in physics (1997)

William Daniel Phillips (born November 5, 1948) is an American physicist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1997, with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.

Biography

Phillips was born to William Cornelius Phillips of Juniata, Pennsylvania and Mary Catherine Savino of Ripacandida, Italy. He is of Italian descent on his mother's side and of Welsh descent on his father's side.[1] His parents moved to Camp Hill (near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) in 1959, where he attended high school and graduated valedictorian of his class. He graduated from Juniata College in 1970 summa cum laude. After that he received his physics doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1978 he joined NIST.

In 1996, he received the Albert A. Michelson Medal from The Franklin Institute.[2]

Phillips' doctoral thesis concerned the magnetic moment of the proton in H2O. He later did some work with Bose–Einstein condensates. In 1997 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and Steven Chu for his contributions to laser cooling, a technique to slow the movement of gaseous atoms in order to better study them, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and especially for his invention of the Zeeman slower.

Phillips is also a professor of physics, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at University of Maryland, College Park.

He was one of the 35 Nobel laureates who signed a letter urging President Obama to provide a stable $15 billion per year support for clean energy research, technology and demonstration.[3]

He is one of three well-known scientists and Methodist laity who have involved themselves in the religion and science dialogue. The other two scientists and fellow Methodists are chemist Charles Coulson and 1981 Nobel laureate Arthur Leonard Schawlow.

In Oct 2010 Phillips participated in the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Lunch with a laureate program where middle and high school students got to engage in an informal conversation with a Nobel Prize–winning scientist over a brown-bag lunch.[4] Phillips is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board.[5]

Personal life

Phillips married Jane Van Wynen shortly before he went to MIT. Neither had been regular churchgoers early in their marriage. However, in 1979, they joined the Fairhaven United Methodist Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland because they appreciated its diversity. He is a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion. He and his wife have two daughters; Caitlin Phillips (b 1979) who founded Rebound Designs, and Christine Phillips (b 1981) who works in Science Communication.

During a seminar at the UMCP Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry titled Coherent Atoms in Optical Lattices Phillips stated, "Rubidium is God's gift to Bose–Einstein condensates."

Notes and references

  1. ↑ "William D. Phillips - Biographical". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  2. ↑ "Franklin Laureate Database – Albert A. Michelson Medal Laureates". Franklin Institute. Retrieved June 16, 2011.
  3. ↑ Open Letter to President Obama. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2012-01-28.
  4. ↑ Lunch with a Laureate at the Wayback Machine (archived June 20, 2010). usasciencefestival.org (2010)
  5. ↑ Advisors. Usasciencefestival.org. Retrieved on 2012-01-28.
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