Wednesday, February 15, 2006

If truth be told, Theodor Hänsch has actually earned the Nobel Prize several times over. He has now received it for “taming” the laser. A portrait of the Munich-based scientist

Ulrich Schnabel , Germany

In one of the dark corridors of Munich University , a multicoloured poster tells of the “Heartbeat of Light”. This is the title Theodor Hänsch likes to give his lectures – although it could just as well be the motto of his own life as a scientist. Even as a child, Hänsch was fascinated by light. Together with his father, he liked to scatter salt into the flame of a Bunsen burner and enthuse at the bright kaleidoscope of colours that resulted. Today, over half a century later, Theodor Hänsch has become the “light magician” of physics. Nowhere are light waves measured more precisely than in Hänsch’s laboratory in Munich . The fact that he has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics for his work is not only justified, it is also a logical consequence.

This German physicist might even see himself as Albert Einstein’s heir in some ways. It was Einstein who launched Hänsch’s present-day field of research with his famous light-quantum hypothesis in 1905. And the fact that the Nobel Committee in Stockholm has honoured quantum optics in this way may well be a reference to Einstein Year.

However, a closer look at Hänsch also reveals how little modern physicists have in common with the Einstein cliché. Whereas Einstein is seen as the prototype of the lone genius, revolutionizing our view of the world from his study, Hänsch, as director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich , holds sway over dozens of researchers – and equipment worth millions. He cultivates a modern style of research with flat hierarchies and creative discussions in small groups. He also loves to play around with technical gadgets.

“Ted”, as his colleagues call him, used to turn up at conferences wielding a digital camera at a time when very few people knew how to operate such a thing. He has also revealed talent as a video-film maker. In one film he made, the spores of lycopod plants dance to the ballet music of Giselle, thus demonstrating the principle of the Paul trap (in which charged particles are caught by an electric field). A television team was supposedly so impressed by this that it tried – in vain – to reproduce this physical dance scene.

The daily Financial Times Deutschland christened him “Professor Gearloose”. Even his colleagues speak of his “pronounced playfulness”. His “playroom” is a small private laboratory at Munich University , crammed full of lasers, microscopes, monitors and mains receivers, some of which the professor picked up by auction on eBay. Hänsch himself says that whenever he has an idea he goes into the laboratory and tries it out. His “jelly laser” was the product of one of these whims. In the early 1970s, Hänsch, who had gone to Stanford University in California after gaining his PhD at Heidelberg , discovered that intensive laser radiation turns dyed liquids into coloured laser sources. He spontaneously went straight off to the nearest supermarket and bought all the flavours of Jell-O he could find – and irradiated them with laser light in the hope of producing coloured light sources. The experiment was not a success in the way Hänsch had hoped – but he wasn’t put off by such setbacks. True to his motto that it’s best to “make mistakes fast”, Hänsch experimented with other materials and was even selected as California Scientist of the Year in 1973 for his unconventional research.

The realization that what initially seem to be disasters often lead to creative solutions is, in a way, one of the constituent elements of quantum optics. A hundred years ago, Albert Einstein himself was confronted by an apparently insoluble contradiction. In those days, light was, on the one hand, equated with electro-magnetic waves. Yet, on the other, it was known that when light hits a photographic plate it is always absorbed in individual portions of energy. But how can a wave be divided into portions? Einstein solved the problem by attributing a “granular” structure to light: this meant that although light spreads out in waves, it always gives off its energy in discrete packages (photons) when it strikes a medium.

This idea completely contradicted the (hitherto) unshakeable dictum that “nature does nothing by starts and leaps”. And yet gradually it was shown that the essence of light really could be described by the novel “quantum leaps”. Moreover, similar effects could be observed in the behaviour of atoms, electrons and molecules. Thus, quantum physics completely revolutionized our understanding of the atomic world, made the development of lasers and computers possible and gave us a whole arsenal of everyday modern electronic equipment – from the CD player to the mobile phone.

It is therefore a logical consequence that, a hundred years after Einstein’s annus mirabilis, the researchers who played a decisive role in this development should be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Roy Glauber formulated the theoretical principles of quantum optics at Harvard University in the 1960s, while Theodor Hänsch and John Hall, a lecturer at the University of Colorado at Boulder, showed us how to tame this laser light.

Nobody in the physics’ community is surprised that Hänsch is among the prize winners. If anything, his colleagues are surprised that the German has not been awarded the prize before now. After all, he has done pioneering work in many fields: in the 1970s he showed how atoms can be slowed down (and thus cooled) with laser beams – thus doing the groundwork for the creation of so-called Bose-Einstein condensates made of ultra-cold atoms, for which his compatriot Wolfgang Ketterle was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2001. In laser spectroscopy, too, Hänsch is regarded as an undisputed authority all over the world. He measured the spectral lines of light emitted by a hydrogen atom to 15 decimal places, thus giving us the most precise test of certain natural constants to date.

Hänsch’s inventive creativity is best demonstrated by the frequency comb, which he developed in 1997 and for which he has now been awarded the Nobel Prize. In the past, the frequencies of individual lasers (which we see as colour) could only be measured indirectly via their wavelengths. However, this method was not accurate enough for modern demands, where frequencies of a billion vibrations a second need to be determined.

Hänsch devised a kind of transmission ratio for light. The core element of the apparatus is a reference laser in which a pulse of light is trapped, as in a cage, by four mirrors and reflected back and forth a billion times a second. One of the mirrors is slightly transparent. With a little nifty regulating, it can be set up in such a way that one light pulse escapes after every millionth vibration. This pulse is geared to the actual frequency of the laser as in a gearbox. All the high-revving action going on inside can be conveniently counted outside by millionfold “gear” reduction.

By using some other tricks, Hänsch managed to get the laser to emit not only light of one frequency, but also hundreds of thousands of colours at once – a kind of musical scale translated into light. If, like on a piano, you were to assign individual keys to these colours, they would be as close together as the teeth of a lice comb. The apparatus was therefore called a frequency comb. It was to be a decisive contribution towards building even more precise atomic clocks, improving satellite navigation and increasing the data-transmission rate in fibre-optic networks.

Although Hänsch also exploits his development commercially with his start-up company (Menlo-Systems), money is secondary to him. Had it been really important, he would probably have stayed in the United States . But he returned to Germany in 1986. After all, “If you want to find something fundamentally new, you need patient patrons,” Hänsch says, “and they are to be found in Germany .”

Text courtesy: Deutschland Magazine, 2005 issue. Embassy of Germany in Kathmandu .

Misguided Economic Education in Korean Schools

Yoo Jang-Hee

Vice President of External Affairs, Professor of Economics Ewha Womans University Lately, concern over the importance of economic education has been on the rise in Korea . As such, various business and economic organizations have actively implemented or sponsored economic-education programs, while the media has published feature articles and columns aimed at educating the younger generation about economic matters. Civic organizations as well as government agencies have also participated in this endeavor by presenting lectures and classes on "how to properly understand the economy."

All of this is indeed a welcome development. However, the economic-education programs implemented thus far have for the most part involved the dissemination of practical economic knowledge. For example, the economic education offered by civic and business organizations, which has been focused on everyday economic matters, instructs students on: how to earn and spend money, the importance of savings, prudent consumption practices, how to establish and maintain credit, and investment advice. This would seem to indicate that economic education has in large part sought to provide the younger generation with basic common sense about everyday economic matters.

This kind of education program may be effective in partially opening the eyes of the younger generation to the significance of economics; however, it fails to present essential information about economic fundamentals. People naturally acquire knowledge about their needs as they grow up, and then assess and investigate their particular circumstances in order to satisfy these needs.

Armed with differing needs and different ways of doing things, individuals join together to form an economic order within a market that is guided by an "invisible hand." Students need to be taught these principles, which are directly related to basic human nature. In other words, economic education should also highlight the functions of market mechanisms, along with explaining their role in encouraging individuals to work harder in pursuit of their dreams, enhance their competitiveness, and secure opportunities for an improved quality of life.

I recently conducted a nationwide opinion survey on today's economic education, which involved 3,019 randomly selected middle and high school students from 32 schools, also randomly selected from each of the 16 cities and provinces that maintain an office of education.

The results of the survey were appalling. Of note, the students identified a lack of employment opportunity and the inequity of income distribution as the two biggest stumbling blocks to Korea 's economic development. In reality, unemployment and poverty are the consequences, rather than the causes, of sluggish economic growth.

In addition, the students called for the government to more actively intervene in the market in order to improve economic performance. This means that students do not believe in or are ignorant about the autonomous and self-adjusting functions of market mechanisms. Furthermore, in their view, equity is more important to economic development than efficiency, and environmental protection should be considered as more important than economic growth.

However, the most astounding finding was that a majority of students believed that the primary objective of business enterprises was to promote social responsibility rather than to pursue profits. For the most part, these students responded that if they were to become entrepreneurs they would seek to assist their communities and contribute to an enhancement of social welfare rather than attempting to compete in the global market.

One can only wonder how these young students have become so far detached from the principles of a capitalistic market economy. How can they, after having learning about how to earn and spend money, the importance of savings, and prudent consumption practices, still consider economic equity, social welfare, government intervention, and the social responsibility of corporations to be of the utmost importance?

There are two factors behind this phenomenon. First, this is directly related to the contents of school textbooks. Among 40 middle and high school textbooks, which were recently analyzed, none were found to contain a definition of the term "market economy." As such, these books include no mention of the three main axes of a capitalist market economy: free competition, individual property rights, and the pursuit of profits.

The sections dealing with business enterprises are concerned mostly with such matters as business ethics, social responsibility, and corporate contributions to social welfare. Conversely, no particular attention is paid to the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that enterprises require to develop innovative technology and new products, earn profits, and supply quality products at competitive prices, while contributing to the nation's economic development.

The second factor involves the attitude of our teachers. According to a recent newspaper article, many teachers are ideologically driven. To these ideologues, the operation of a market economy is the equivalent of an Americanization process. Moreover, it could be said that these individuals are obsessed with an ideology of equality while rejecting competition, along with claiming that a sense of community is better for the economy, and the true owners of business enterprises are the workers, and therefore workers should participate in management decisions. And they also criticize the teacher-evaluation system as being misguided. Accordingly, what can we expect from students who are being taught by teachers who maintain such a misinformed attitude toward a market economy?

[The Maeil Business Newspaper, October 7, 2005 ]

Text courtesy: Embassy of Republic of Korea in Kathmandu .

U.S. Thwarted Terrorist Attack Against Los Angeles in 2002

Senior security official says global intelligence sharing was key

The U.S. government, aided by foreign allies, thwarted an al-Qaida plot to fly a commercial jetliner into the highest skyscraper on the U.S. West Coast in late 2001 or early 2002, a senior administration official said February 9.

"[T]here's an ongoing and effective international cooperation that is working to undermine al-Qaida's attempts to attack us," said Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism Frances Fragos Townsend in a telephone briefing with reporters following President Bush's speech about security issues earlier in the day.

Townsend said that the thwarted "West Coast" plot is a reminder of the need to gather as much information as possible from all sources, especially detainee debriefings and intelligence operations, to uncover evolving terrorist networks and plots.

Al-Qaida's original intent was to attack the east and west coasts of the United States simultaneously on September 11, 2001, but it was unable to find enough operatives to do so, Townsend said.  Al-Qaida implemented only the east coast element of its September 11 plot, destroying the World Trade Center in New York and damaging the Pentagon outside Washington with commandeered airliners.

In October 2001, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, began planning the attack against the U.S. Bank Tower, formerly known as the Library Tower, which is located in Los Angeles and is the tallest building on the U.S. West Coast.

Working with the alleged Indonesian terrorist Hambali, who is believed to have been the operations chief of the shadowy Jemaah Islamiah, al-Qaida recruited a four-member cell that traveled to Afghanistan for a meeting with Osama bin Laden and swore their allegiance to him, according to Townsend.

The head of the West Coast plotters received instructions on the use of shoe bombs by Richard Reid, who was arrested in December 2001 and charged with trying to blow up an airliner with explosives planted in his shoes.   As a result of cooperation with two countries in South Asia and two in Southeast Asia, the West Coast plot was uncovered and the cell leader was arrested in February 2002.  The other members later were taken into custody, Townsend said.