How Physicists Took An Electron's Picture - Physics Nobel Prize 2023 Explained

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The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to a fantastic trio working towards imaging electrons on the attosecond scale. I am an optical physicist, so I naturally want to take a deeper look at why this discovery is important, how it actually works, and what it unlocks for our understanding of the universe around us and how it actually behaves.

#physics #nobelprize #breakthrough #science

0:00 Electrons and the world of the minute.
1:22 "Everything in physics starts with Einstein" - Isaac Newton
2:26 Breaking the 6 femtosecond record
5:27 How to build the world's fastest laser pulses
7:05 Ad read
7:50 How to see an Electron
9:03 Why don't you just use a single photon?

Merch!
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[adilsongoliveira]

"Everything in Physics starts with Einstein" - Isaac Newton. I presume that includes time travel as well 😁

[Trebor_I]

The only interval faster than an attosecond is when the light turns green and the guy behind me blows his car horn.

[jensphiliphohmann]

01:23
_"Everything in physics starts with Einstein." -- Isaac Newton --_
... killed me. 😂

[theoptimisticskeptic]

The concept of an attosecond completely blows my mind! To think there are more attoseconds in EVERY second in there have been seconds in the age of the Universe since the Big Bang is awe-inspiring!

[ScienceDiscussed]

Really great video on the nobel prize. Great level of detail on the topic that hasn't been covered elsewhere.

[holographic_red]

As a musician and synth designer, this nobel price really spoke to me. And yes sometimes I think way to much about phase and harmonics. Great video my friend! 😊

[kunjukunjunil]

Local variations of wavelength within a laser pulse is really fascinating.

[padraiggluck]

The physicists who produced the first attosecond pulse won an attaboy prize.

[CarbonPhysics]

Your writing is excellent. Thank you so much for your clear explanations.

[benruniko]

Quantum mechanics makes the phrase “pics or it didn’t happen” into a strange kind of debate with reality.
The universe says “nah man”

[Fozzedout]

Holy moly... They did the atomic equivalent of a gravity sling shot with light on an atom to speed up the photons?! 🤯

[eolhcytoos]

Extremely well presented. Clear and precise and relatively(no pun intended) easy to follow. Thank you.

[motocash]

Nice Douglas Adams reference at 10:46...should have been 4 seconds sooner for true effect. 😂

[randyzeitman]

Your distinctions are excellent. For example, you explained how the fourier bandwidth is related to the length of the pulse.

[khalidify]

Thanks for showing electron Orbital & cloud in real time.

[MOSMASTERING]

@ 8.00 Mins - the entire dialogue is just an immense tongue twister.. bravo for getting through it all.. !!

[martifingers]

This may well be a stupid question but has this line of research any implications for how to interpret wave function collapse? It seems to rely on the electron having a specific position.

[regulus]

i am so interested in the signal processing required to do this ... if you can generate a sub femto second signal is always in the optical form or rather whats the fastest electrical signal that can currently be generated ?

[alanhamilton]

Admit that I still have a problem with photons. The attosecond laser burst is cleverly built with phased beams interfering to create the desired regular pulse. At this stage it is still an electromagnetic beam and as such, will transfer momentum to a moving charge (such as an electron). Instead of seeing the electron, it sees a displaced charge caused by the attempt to observe it? Is a photon still an E/M beam? I’m guessing not, or we at least don’t think of it as such, using probability density functions.

[towerofresonance]

What I always found so fascinating on the infinitely small-scale is the infinitely large-scale of the universe and how things behave similar, and even the replication is similar, going inward as it is going outward...