STRANGE WAYS OF LIGHT AND ATOME

_____________________________________

Strange ways of light and atoms

________________________________________________________

Two of Einstein's less well-known discoveries – Bose–Einstein condensation and stimulated emission – have had a huge impact on the modern world.

Einstein is best known for relativity and his other 1905 breakthroughs – explaining the photoelectric effect and his work on Brownian motion – but his ideas also underpinned the development of the laser and the creation of a new state of matter called the Bose–Einstein condensate. These discoveries, which were made in 1916 and 1924, respectively, were based on Einstein’s investigations into "bosonic" particles such as photons. Moreover, Bose–Einstein condensation was predicted to occur in one of the simplest physical systems: the ideal gas.