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They shined a light on light itself

Two American scientists and a German are honored with the Nobel Prize in physics.

Two Americans and a German won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for optics research that is improving the accuracy of such precision instruments as GPS locators, atomic clocks and navigation systems.

Americans John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber shared the prize with Theodor W. Haensch of Germany. Glauber, 80, of Harvard University, took half of the $1.3-million award for showing how the quantum nature of light can affect its behavior. His insights led to the work of Hall, 71, a professor at the University of Colorado, and Haensch, 63, of the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitaet in Munich. Hall and Haensch will share the other half of the prize.

Glauber said he thought it was a joke when the phone jolted him awake early Tuesday and a man with a Swedish accent told him he had won the Nobel Prize. He recognized the voice as a scientist he knows and thought it was a prank.

"I could scarcely believe him," he said. "But there was something very persuasive about that hour of the morning."

Until Glauber published his theories in 1963, scientists dismissed the idea that quantum theory, which was developed to describe the behavior of particles, had any application to light. But Glauber showed that certain types of light - including lasers - could only be fully understood using quantum methods, which treat light as individual packets of energy rather than continuous waves.

"His results are fundamental for our modern understanding of the behavior of light," said Sune Svanberg, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Researchers have used Glauber's insights to create exotic lasers and devices that hold tiny samples in place with the pressure of photons. More recently, the possibility has arisen of building computers that use light, rather than electricity, to do their calculations.

Hall and Haensch built on Glauber's discovery by developing a means of measuring the frequency of a laser beam to a precision of one part in a thousand-trillion. With that ability, scientists can build clocks that keep time more accurately than existing atomic devices. They can also improve the precision of distance measurements.

"This in turn will allow better GPS systems, better space navigation and improved control of astronomical telescope arrays," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted in awarding the prize.

The research could also be useful in creating better digital animation.

"Eventually, we may be able to enjoy three-dimensional holographic movies," Haensch said.

The awards for chemistry, peace and literature will be announced through the end of the week, with the economics prize to be awarded Oct. 10.

This year's Nobel Prize in physics is shared by three scientists for their work in the field of optics. Roy Glauber was awarded half the prize for his theoretical description of the behavior of light particles. Glauber established the field of quantum optics, in which quantum theory encompasses the field of optics. This allowed him to explain the fundamental differences between hot sources of light such as light bulbs, with a mixture of frequencies and phases, and lasers, which give a specific frequency and phase. John Hall and Theodor Haensch share the other half of the prize for their development of laser-based precision spectroscopy - in other words, the determination of the color of the light of atoms and molecules with extreme precision. This makes it possible to carry out studies of the stability of the constants of nature over time and to develop extremely accurate clocks and improved GPS technology.

- WWW.NOBELPRIZE.ORG