




The Zurich Physics Colloquium is jointly organized by the University of Zurich and the ETH Zurich. Its mission is to bring both students and faculty with diverse interests (astrophysics, condensed matter physics, high energy physics, quantum electronics/optics) into contact with newest scientific developments in natural sciences, predominantly physics but also biology, chemistry, and topics from environmental sciences. Leading experts explain the basic questions in their field of research and communicate the fascination for their work.
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5/26/2009 | Download File (103.25 MB) - right click to download
People often talk about the quantum state of n entangled particles as if it contained an amount of information exponential in n. Sometimes, they draw the conclusion from this that quantum mechanics must be an extravagant theory valid only for simple systems or small numbers of particles, or that largescale quantum computing must be impossible in principle.
5/12/2009 | Download File (111.39 MB) - right click to download
The author of this talk, an astrophysicist by training, had the opportunity, on two occasions, to visit the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on its Low Earth Orbit as a member of STS-46 and STS-103 Space Shuttle crews. These two visits allowed the execution of essential repair work, mainly in the area of optical performance, electrical power supply, and attitude control of the orbiting observatory.
5/5/2009 | Download File (120.78 MB) - right click to download
The changes in the atomic configuration underlying chemical reactions, phase transitions and many other fundamental processes in nature take place on a femtosecond (fs) time scale, that is, roughly speaking 10-14 to 10-13 s (1 fs = 10-15s). Ultrafast lasers and optical spectroscopy provide the capability of temporally resolving these processes but they lack the spatial resolution that is be required to directly track the motion of the atoms
4/28/2009 | Download File (62.02 MB) - right click to download
Superconductivity is a most remarkable property of matter, whereby electrons enter spontaneously a state of macroscopic quantum coherence in which electricity flows perfectly. Were this state sustainable at room temperature, our technological world would be profoundly transformed. The most promising materials are the copper oxides which remain superconducting halfway to room temperature
4/28/2009 | Download File (62.02 MB) - right click to download
Superconductivity is a most remarkable property of matter, whereby electrons enter spontaneously a state of macroscopic quantum coherence in which electricity flows perfectly. Were this state sustainable at room temperature, our technological world would be profoundly transformed. The most promising materials are the copper oxides which remain superconducting halfway to room temperature
4/21/2009 | Download File (100.91 MB) - right click to download
4/7/2009 | Download File (106.74 MB) - right click to download
Recently a debate has arisen here at ETH Zurich centering on the question whether the envisaged 2000 Watt Society is inevitable. Why should not we be allowed to use more energy? Would not it be more important to limit greenhouse gas emissions? In this lecture, we shall analyze whether the 2000 Watt Society is at all sustainable, and if so, what it will take to keep energy supply at that level after the end of ample and cheap fossil fuels.
3/31/2009 | Download File (79.80 MB) - right click to download
In the autumn of 1609 Galileo pointed his telescope to the heavens and made six important discoveries. First, the Moon has mountains and craters like the Earth, second, there are many more stars than was believed; third, the Milky Way is a congeries of starlets; fourth, Venus has phases and hence goes around the Sun; fifth, Jupiter has four satellites; and sixth there are spots on the Sun.
3/24/2009 | Download File (101.99 MB) - right click to download
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is a proton-proton collider with a centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. The machine has many novel design features including a twoin- one magnet cooled in superfluid helium at 1.9K. A brief description of the main design features is given and some of the challenges in accelerator physics discussed.
3/17/2009 | Download File (96.73 MB) - right click to download
The standard model of particle physics is built upon four-dimensional gauge theories. Unfortunately, computations within them are intrinsically hard, and our knowledge is therefore restricted to tiny fractions of their parameter space. In recent years we have made considerable progress towards solving the spectrum of at least one such theory exactly by employing technology well-known from condensed matter physics such as integrable spin chains.