Father of Quantum Optics Selected for the Manhattan Project at the age of 18, and won the Nobel Prize at the age of 80

 

Light is an important part of quantum physics, and much of the early quantum theory came from studying light. In the 1960s, quantum physics began to feed back into optics, giving birth to lasers and a new discipline—quantum optics. In fact, almost all the leaders of quantum information science in China started from quantum optics research. In 1984, Academician Guo Guangcan chaired the first National Conference on Quantum Optics, which laid an important foundation for the subsequent development of quantum information science.

 

When it comes to quantum optics, Roy J. Glauber has to be mentioned. In 1963, Glauber published his landmark paper, "The Quantum Theory of Optical Coherence," applying quantum mechanics to different forms of light, explaining the fundamental characteristics of different types of light, from lasers to light bulbs. Because of this achievement, he was later called the "Father of Quantum Optics".

 

Glauber is a typical genius. He was admitted to Harvard University at the age of 16 and joined the Manhattan Project, which secretly developed the atomic bomb, at the age of 18. Glauber's life can be described as smooth sailing, only the Nobel Prize makes him haunt him. That love-hate relationship with the Nobel Prize also gave him another title—the sweeper of the scientific community.

 

"The Sweeper" Roy Glauber

 

011943, youngest member of the Manhattan Project

 

Roy Glauber was born on September 1, 1925 in New York City. His father was a traveling salesman, so Glauber traveled all over the country with his father since he was a child. "After a long drive through endless farmland, we would spend the night at a farmer's house with a 'visitor vacancy' sign on the side of the road -- never in the same house two nights in a row," recalls Glauber.

 

The Great Depression in the United States in 1929 ended his "wandering" journey. His father lost his job and the family had to move back to New York, though they moved frequently—from Manhattan to Queens to the Bronx.

 

Unlike other children, he hardly likes any sports except roller skating. He is most interested in the natural sciences and has a strong hands-on ability, such as building models of airplanes, ships and trains in various shapes, thanks to his mother's talent in crafts - from sewing, embroidery to painting, self-taught.

 

Glauber became interested in science and astronomy as a teenager. He built a telescope by hand, even polished mirrors himself, and began attending lectures at the Hayden Planetarium in New York.

 

In September 1938, New York City opened a new high school, the Bronx Science High School, with the aim of providing a broader scientific background. Glauber, who had a keen interest in science, chose the high school even though he needed to ride a long trolley between Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. There, he studied calculus and other mathematics, which led him to skip these basic courses when he entered college.

 

Glauber preferred making optical instruments to mathematics. In 1939, he built a spectroscope, which won second prize at the Science Fair and was displayed for several months at the 1939 New York World's Fair. At the December 1940 Science Congress, he gave a lecture showing some of the pictures he had taken with a telescope, a beamsplitter and a borrowed microscope.

 

Roy Glauber, 1940

 

Throughout high school, Glauber was immersed in this scientific atmosphere. In 1941, he was successfully admitted to Harvard University.

 

Glauber entered school in the fall of 1941, but on December 7 of that year, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States joined the war in Europe and the Pacific the next day. Many professors at Harvard were involved in secret war-related projects, so Glauber completed the physics course originally planned for two years in one year.

 

In October 1943, during his junior year, Glauber was recruited to join the Manhattan Project, a top-secret project to build an atomic bomb in Los Alamos in the western United States. He arrived by train and took a ride to the laboratory with mathematician John von Neumann, who at 18 became the youngest member of the Manhattan Project. There, he was responsible for calculating the critical mass of the first atomic bomb.

 

Returning to Harvard after the war, he received his bachelor's degree in 1946 and his doctorate in 1949. His thesis advisor was the theoretical physicist Julian Schwinger, who won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.

 

After graduation, Oppenheimer, who had led the Manhattan Project, invited Glauber to work at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where Oppenheimer was the dean. Glauber was eventually able to collaborate with Wolfgang Pauli, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945.

 

Pauli by Glauber, 1950

 

Before returning to teach at Harvard in 1952, Glauber taught for a year at Caltech, succeeding Richard Feynman, who was on sabbatical in Brazil. Since then, Glauber has worked at Harvard until his retirement.

 

021963, the father of quantum optics

 

In 1963, at the age of 38, Glauber had his first child and, of course, that landmark paper "The Quantum Theory of Optical Coherence," in which he successfully applied quantum mechanics to different forms of light that had previously only been possible using Classical physical methods and mathematics to analyze light. This marked the birth of quantum optics.

 

Since the 1960s, laser technology has developed rapidly. However, scientists' description of the properties of light itself is controversial.

 

He proposed a method to use electromagnetic quantization to understand optical observations, with the help of quantum field theory for a consistent description of photodetection. He proved that the "bunching" discovered by Humber-Brown and Tevez was a natural consequence of the random nature of thermal radiation. An ideal coherent laser beam simply wouldn't show the same effect.

 

An essential feature of the theoretical quantum description of optical observations is that when a photoelectron is observed, the photon is absorbed and the state of the photon field changes. When multiple detectors are correlated, the system becomes sensitive to quantum effects, which are more pronounced if there are only a few photons in the field. Later experiments involving several photodetectors were carried out, all described using Glauber's theory.

 

This theory solves a large number of fundamental problems, successfully describing the motion law of photons, revealing the characteristics of photons, and how a large number of photons affect each other and how they operate to produce "interference" phenomena, etc.

 

Roy Glauber

 

03In 1998, the scourge of the scientific community

 

In the 1990s, with the rise of quantum information science, the foundational role of quantum optics began to emerge. Industry insiders believe that Glauber's Nobel Prize in Physics is a matter of course. Sure enough, in 1995, Glauber was nominated, but ultimately fell short. Interestingly, he was invited by the Ig Nobel prize, and Glauber, with his sense of humor, accepted the invitation without hesitation.

 

The Ig Nobel Prize was established by Mark Abraham, a young man from Cambridge, USA, who decided to show the world scientists' sense of humor. The award is presented annually at the Harvard Theater. As a professor at Harvard, Glauber didn't seem surprised to be invited. At awards ceremonies, there is a tradition of throwing paper airplanes on the stage. However, Harvard's fire department believes it may be a fire hazard.

 

So, an interesting scene appeared. At the 1998 awards ceremony, Mark Abraham asked Glauber to help clean up the paper planes. The very entertaining Glauber picked up his broom and walked onto the stage, causing the audience to burst into laughter. Nearly every year since then, he has cleaned paper planes at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies, earning him the nickname "Keeper of the Broom".

 

Glauber cleaning up the paper planes on the table, 1998

 

Glauber spends most of his time doing double duty at the Ig Nobels — handing out the Ig Nobels to some of the new winners, as well as continuing to sweep paper airplanes. In fact, after he won the real Nobel Prize, he still did not forget to bring laughter to people at the Ig Nobel Prize.

 

Glauber and Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine Craig Mello at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, 2007

 

Glauber and his broom, 2012

 

Glauber and 4 other Nobel laureates pay tribute to scientists, 2016

 

042005, won the Nobel Prize

 

In 2005, 80-year-old Glauber received an unexpected call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences informing him that he had won the Nobel Prize in Physics. We don't know how he reacted at the time, but after accepting the award, Glauber displayed his usual humour.

 

Roy Glauber, 2005

 

He was asked why all journalists showed more interest in him than any other new Nobel laureate. Then Glauber paused for a long time, "but all they wanted to ask was that damn broom and paper plane."

 

On December 26, 2018, Glauber finished a brilliant and humorous life at the age of 93.

 

By the way, in 2010 there was a strange burglary at Glauber's house: someone stole his Nobel medal.

 

Reference links:

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/obituaries/roy-j-glauber-dead.html

[2]https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2005/glauber/biographical/

[3]https://hias.tamu.edu/fellow/dr-roy-glauber/

[4]https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/popular-physicsprize2005.pdf

[5]https://improbable.com/2018/12/27/sad-news-roy-glauber-paper-airplane-sweeper-and-physicist-of-light-is-gone/