2013 Misel Family Lecture: Professor Eric Cornell, University of Colorado, Boulder

Public Lecture

“Why is Warm Glass Stickier than Cold Glass?"

McNamara Alumni Center, Memorial Hall

Wednesday, September 25, 2013 at 7:00 p.m.

Abstract: What we think of as "empty" space is really filled with a fluctuating electric field. These tiny electric fields are spooky-seeming but entirely real. They give rise to the stickiness of a perfectly clean glass surface. I'll talk about a set of experiments we did on this so-called Casimir-Polder force; time permitting I'll explore connections to eschatology as well.