Parth G's video: The 2005 Nobel Prize Controversy: The Indian-American Physicist Who Should Have Won It Instead

To try everything Brilliant has to offer FREE for a full 30 days, visit http://brilliant.org/ParthG/. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription. The 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Roy J. Glauber for his work on Quantum Optics. However, the decision to award the Prize to Glauber was controversial. Many physicists believed that E.C. George Sudarshan made just as many important contributions to the field, including ideas that Roy was eventually credited with (having initially criticized George's work, and then later agreeing with him). A group of physicists wrote letters to the Swedish Academy (responsible for determining who should win the prize) to state that this was a grave miscarriage of justice, and to ask why George was not considered instead of Roy. The Swedish Academy never clarifies their entire decision making process until 50 years after the awarding of the prize, so we've got some time to wait. However they did mention that Roy published his research first, and that he had other contributions which counted towards the prize. Additionally, Alfred Nobel's will clearly states that only three physics laureates can be chosen each year, with only two distinct pieces of work being recognized. The committee had already decided to honor two experimental physicists that year, so there was only one spot left - and that was given to Roy. George (and others) felt that he had been hard done by. George asked "If you give a prize for a building, shouldn’t the fellow who built the first floor be given the prize before those who built the second floor"? He also wrote "No one has the right to take my discoveries and formulations and ascribe them to someone else!" Suffice to say, although most people thought Roy was very deserving of the Nobel Prize for his work, that George should have been at least honored to the same degree. It's also important to note that most people do not believe that Roy stole George's work - after all, they communicated back and forth often, improving on each other's ideas. However the fact that Roy criticized George's ideas, then came out with a "p-representation" that was mathematically equivalent to George's "diagonal representation" left a bad taste in people's mouths, especially because this work was quoted as one of the reasons the Prize was awarded to Roy. The work in question centers around coherent states of light. Basically, these are quantum mechanical states that use some understanding from classical electromagnetism, to describe how light behaves. Coherent states are the closest equivalent we can find in quantum mechanics to the light waves that we are so familiar with from high school physics. Although early quantum mechanics dealt with photons (particles) of light, coherent states showed how light WAVES could be represented. In this video we understand the basics of quantum harmonic oscillators (systems with quadratic potential wells). If we treat the electromagnetic field as a quantum harmonic oscillator, then each of its allowed states (eigenstates) represents a different number of photons carrying energy through space. The lowest energy state is one which has zero photons - no light energy. The next one consists of 1 single photon. Then 2 photons, and so on. Coherent states are quantum superpositions of ALL the possible photon states. In other words, from a quantum perspective, a light wave is a blend of states containing ALL possible number of photons. The light wave may be made up of 0, or 1, or 2, etc. photons. In fact before we measure it, it is made up of ALL of these possibilities. And once we measure the wave, we find that the system collapses into one possible state. For example we may find it's made up of 4 photons. This is a great example of wave-particle duality! Coherent states were worked on by both Roy and George (initially proposed by Roy), and mathematical representations of these states were very importantly devised by George and Roy. Thanks for watching, please do check out my links: MERCH - https://parth-gs-merch-stand.creator-spring.com/ INSTAGRAM - @parthvlogs PATREON - patreon.com/parthg MUSIC CHANNEL - Parth G's Shenanigans Here are some affiliate links for things I use! Quantum Physics Book I Enjoy: https://amzn.to/3sxLlgL My Camera: https://amzn.to/2SjZzWq ND Filter: https://amzn.to/3qoGwHk Videos in Cards: 1) https://youtu.be/ocJBIXua6zQ 2) https://youtu.be/j-neq1KhuPc 3) https://youtu.be/Is_QH3evpXw Timestamps: 0:00 - Meet E.C. George Sudarshan and Roy Glauber 2:07 - Big Thanks to Brilliant, Check Out their Courses in the Description 3:15 - Nobel Prize Controversy and Backlash 4:56 - Why Roy but Not George? 5:50 - Classical and Quantum Harmonic Oscillators 9:09 - Electromagnetic Waves and Coherent States of Light This video was sponsored by Brilliant