Ramsey, Dehmelt, Paul Win Nobel for Helping to Set High Standards

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 1989 Nobel Physics Prize to three physicists who have made important contributions to “the development of atomic precision spectroscopy.” The new laureates are Norman Ramsey of Harvard University, Hans Dehmelt of the University of Washington and Wolfgang Paul of the University of Bonn. Their work laid the basis for the cesium clock standard, which today is accurate to 2 parts in ${10}^{14},$ and for a possible successor based on the optical transition of a single isolated ion. Ramsey helped develop the hydrogen maser, which is far more stable than the cesium clock for time periods of a few hours and which may be made more stable yet. Techniques developed by the three prizewinners have enabled high‐precision tests of general relativity and quantum electrodynamics and accurate measurements of a number of physical constants.

This article is only available in PDF format