John Bell Prize nominations:
REQUEST FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE JOHN STEWART BELL PRIZE 2011 FOR RESEARCH ON FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES IN QUANTUM MECHANICS AND THEIR APPLICATIONSDear friends and colleagues:We are pleased to announce John Stewart Bell Prize 2011, and ask for your assistance in identifying candidates for the award.The John Stewart Bell Prize for Research on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and their Applications (short form: “Bell Prize”) will be awarded every other year, in particular again in 2011, for significant contributions first published in the 6 years preceding January 1st of the award year. The award is meant to recognize major advances relating to the foundations of quantum mechanics and to the applications of these principles – this covers, but is not limited to, quantum information theory, quantum computation, quantum foundations, quantum cryptography, and quantum control. The award is not intended as a “lifetime achievement” award, but rather to highlight the continuing rapid pace of research in these areas. It is intended to cover even-handedly theoretical and experimental research, both fundamental and applied.The award is funded and managed by the University of Toronto, Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control (CQIQC), but the award selection will be handled by an arms-length selection committee. The membership of the 2011 committee isAlain AspectNicolas Gisin (winner of the inaugural Bell Prize 2009)Aephraim Steinberg, ex officio vice-chairJohn PreskillPeter Zoller chairThe award will be presented as part of the biennial CQIQC conference, during which the awardee will be invited to deliver a prize lecture.To nominate a candidate for this award, please email your nomination to Anna Ho, CQIQC administrative assistant, at aho [atatat] chem.utoronto.ca. The nomination should include the name and affiliation of the nominee, a 1-2 paragraph statement of the importance of the contribution on the basis of which you are making the nomination and the principal literature citations to this work (which must have been published between January 2005 and December 2010). Self-nomination is prohibited.All nominations received prior to December 25, 2010 will be considered (although the committee will not be bound to restrict itself to these nominations).Thank you in advance for your assistance,Peter Zolleron behalf of the Bell Prize selection committee
In an arxiv preprint (physics/0105046), Roman Jackiw and Abner Shimony describe how John Bell listed his discipline at CERN as “quantum engineer” as early as 1960.
Jackiw and Shimony assert that Bell’s self-description was “facetious” … and yet they provide no evidence that Bell had any facetious intent. Rather, in retrospect we appreciate that Bell’s self-described profession, like the rest of his research, reflected his pioneering vision of quantum dynamics.
Although Wolfgang Pauli had earlier described Enrico Fermi as a “quantum engineer,” to the best of my present knowledge, John Bell was the first to embrace it as a profession.
If anyone knows of earlier/other self-described quantum engineers, the details would be very welcome.
Well, I wish the award had been around earlier. I would have suggested Shahriar Afshar for his 2001 experiment that at least raises questions about which-way and wave nature being always logically orthogonal. It’s possible he could still qualify since according to Wikipedia “Afshar presented his work also at the American Physical Society meeting in Los Angeles, in late March 2005.[13] His peer-reviewed paper was published in Foundations of Physics in January 2007.[1]” (even though it was reported earlier.)
It seems to me, the wires at the middle stage of the 2-slit interference pattern in the Afshar experiment must be in the presence of a “real interference pattern” or else the wires would absorb light. However, beyond that plane we can find the direction, of which slit the photon “should” have come through, later with the telescope showing flash from one or the other slit. Even if you don’t think he proved his claim (and that old “interpretation” bugaboo), it is thought-provoking and forces reconsideration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afshar_experiment