Nobel Prize in Physics-2001

Abstract

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics deals with an extreme state of matter, the Bose-Einstein Condensate. The three scientists who are awarded the Prize jointly are Eric A. Cornell, JILA and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, Colorado, USA, Wolfgang Ketterle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and Carl E. Wieman, JILA and University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences citation runs "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates". Here we give a background and a description of the contributions of the Laureates.