Steven Chu
Steven Chu
Steven Chuis an American physicist who is known for his research at Bell Labs and Stanford University in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 February 1948
CountryUnited States of America
american-scientist chinese factor families public school town
There were only two other Chinese families in this town of 25,000, but to our parents, the determining factor was the quality of the public school system.
american-scientist bell dozen fall hired joined roughly scientists within year
I joined Bell Laboratories in the fall of 1978. I was one of roughly two dozen brash, young scientists that were hired within a two year period.
american-scientist beginning consequences far few intuitive proving reaching took
Beginning from a few intuitive postulates, far reaching consequences could be derived, and I took immediately to the sport of proving theorems.
american-scientist centered despite education importance life school work
Despite the importance of education in our family, my life was not completely centered around school work or recreational reading.
dream kings character
I've always been inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, who articulated his Dream of an America where people are judged not by skin color but "by the content of their character." In the scientific world, people are judged by the content of their ideas. Advances are made with new insights, but the final arbitrator of any point of view are experiments that seek the unbiased truth, not information cherry picked to support a particular point of view.
europe gasoline levels
Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.
my-family raison-detre
Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'etre.
brother two degrees
I'm the least-educated person in my immediate family. My two other brothers have multiple advanced degrees, and I only have one. [...] Actually, now that I've got a Nobel Prize, I feel equal.
agriculture world today
So imagine a world 6 degrees warmer. It's not going to recognize geographical boundaries. It's not going to recognize anything. So agriculture regions today will be wiped out.
atoms lasers intensity
The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.
curiosity branches way
Science is really about describing the way the universe works in one aspect or another in all branches of science-how a life-form works, how this works, how that works. ... You have to have a natural curiosity for that.
firsts remember exciting
Geometry was the first exciting course I remember.
sea three levels
Let me state what the official IPCC prediction is: Sea levels could go up as much as three-quarters of a meter in this century, but there is a reasonable probability it could be much higher than that.
brother school sheep
Education in our family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'etre ... In this family of accomplished scholars, I was to become the academic black sheep. I performed adequately at high school, but in comparison to my older brother, who set the record for the highest cumulative average for our high school, my performance was decidedly mediocre.