[Sci-tech-public] Knight Seminar next week: April 21

[Eric Strattman]

KNIGHT SEMINAR:  April 21, E19-623 at 4:00pm.
How the Hippies Saved Physics
David Kaiser, Associate Professor, Program in Science, Technology, and  
Society, MIT and Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics, MIT.


Abstract:
	In recent years, the field of quantum information science -- an  
amalgam of topics ranging from quantum encryption, to quantum  
computing, quantum teleportation, and more -- has catapulted to the  
cutting edge of physics, sporting a multi-billion-dollar research  
program, tens of thousands of published research articles, and a  
variety of device prototypes. This tremendous excitement marks the  
tail end of a long-simmering Cinderella story. Long before the big  
budgets and dedicated teams, the field moldered on the scientific  
sidelines. In fact, the field’'s recent breakthroughs derive, in part,  
from the hazy, bong-filled excesses of the 1970s New Age movement.  
Many of the ideas that now occupy the core of quantum information  
science once found their home amid an anything-goes counterculture  
frenzy, a mishmash of spoon-bending psychics, Eastern mysticism, LSD  
trips, CIA spooks chasing mind-reading dreams, and comparable “Age of  
Aquarius” enthusiasms. For the better part of two decades, the  
concepts that would, in time, blossom into developments like quantum  
encryption were bandied about in late-night bull sessions and hawked  
by proponents of a burgeoning self-help movement—more snake oil than  
stock option. This talk describes the field’'s bumpy transition from  
New Age to cutting edge.

About the speaker:
             David Kaiser is a Professor at the Massachusetts  
Institute of Technology, where he teaches in the Program in Science,  
Technology, and Society and the Department of Physics. He completed  
PhDs in theoretical physics and the history of science at Harvard.  
Kaiser is author of the award-winning book, Drawing Theories Apart:   
The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (2005), which  
traces how Richard Feynman’'s idiosyncatic approach to quantum physics  
entered the mainstream. In 2010, he was elected a Fellow of the  
American Physical Society. Other honors include the Leroy Apker Award  
from the American Physical Society; the Pfizer Prize from the History  
of Science Society for best book in the field; the Harold Edgerton  
Faculty Achievement Award from MIT; and several teaching awards from  
Harvard and MIT. His latest book, How the Hippies Saved Physics, will  
be published by W. W. Norton in June 2011.
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