The Spectrograph

JILA Fellow John Hall will deliver the 2006 Richard C. Lord Lecture on May 2, on “Optical clocks, combs and coherence: defining and measuring optical frequency.” Born in 1934 in Denver, Hall is an alumnus of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. He conducted postdoctoral studies at the Department of Commerce’s National Bureau of Standards, now called National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Along with 11 others, he moved to Boulder in 1962 to participate in founding the new Joint Institute of Laboratory Astrophysics, now known as JILA. He retired from NIST in 2004, but continues his JILA research enthusiastically. He has lectured at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1967 and is currently a NIST Senior Fellow, Emeritus. Hall is well known for developing and applying innovative laser techniques to the study of fundamental physical constants and theories, and to advance measurement science. He shared one half of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics with Theodor Hänsch. Hall is cited by the Nobel Prize committee for “contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique”. The other half of the prize was awarded to Roy Glauber. Hall has received many other honors for his pioneering work, including the Optical Society of America’s Max Born Award “for pioneering the field of stable lasers, including their applications in fundamental physics and, most recently, in the stabilizaJohn Hall Good Vibrations!