BIG UCSB PHYSICS NOBEL CELEBRATION
Every year in October our UCSB Physics faculty present an explanation of the Nobel Prize in Physics for that year. This year was different because two of the Nobel Prize winners were UCSB Physics faculty! Instead of others explaining the research, the actual winners took the stage. And it was a big stage: An overflow crowd at the UCSB Corwin Pavilion.
I was privileged to get a seat in the front as a UCSB Physics alumnus and as a media person. Here are my many photos from this privileged spot. Here are a few video clips I made.
WHY THIS NOBEL WAS GIVEN/WHY IT MATTERS
The prize-winning research involved pioneering work that led to current work on creating quantum computers. A very hot topic that is receiving billions of dollars now from big players like Google, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon, along with many smaller specialty players.
As explained during the UCSB event, much of the technology we enjoy today came as a result of decades of pure research in university laboratories. The benefits are not clear at the time. Long term thinking is needed. “Trump” was not named during the event. But all fingers were pointed at him with regard to his “chainsaw” destruction of funding for exactly this type of research. Executed in Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”. We won’t see the resulting damage perhaps for decades…