Nobel laureate to talk relativity at Colorado State University

FORT COLLINS – John L. Hall, who shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics, will deliver a public talk Oct. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Behavioral Sciences Building, Room 101, at Colorado State University.

A Colorado native, Hall is a retired senior scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he served from 1962 to 2004. He remains a fellow of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, and is a lecturer in the University of Colorado-Boulder physics department.

Hall shared the Nobel prize with Theodor W. Hansch for their work on the optical frequency comb. A frequency comb is a rapid-pulsed laser that can measure light of different frequencies, or colors, with extreme precision.

Hall’s work paved the way for major advances in optical spectroscopy, atomic clocks and gas sensing. In his talk, “Light, Time and Einstein’s Relativity,” he will discuss time measurements in proposed space-based experiments that can test Einstein’s 1905 Special Theory of Relativity.

The free event, followed by a public reception, is supported by the Department of Physics and the College of Natural Sciences at CSU.

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