Serge Haroche and Dave Wineland share the 2012 Nobel Prize for their work in quantum optics / atomic physics. Wineland traps atoms whereas Haroche traps photons. Haroche is a normalien and Wineland was educated at Berkeley and Harvard.
My favorite Haroche experiments are the ones in which he creates macroscopic Schrodinger cat states and watches them decohere. For example, see here and here. I also like Haroche's book Exploring the Quantum.
See also Schrodinger's virus.
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You know, I wonder whether or not that Nobel Peace Prize should go to me tomorrow... I mean, I realize that correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, but I really do wonder whether or not anything I did helped to bring about this Pax Infoprocana. Even if it only lasts a few months until the next time Steve blogs about something "controversial" and all hell breaks loose again, I think it should still be something, no? I mean, fuck, they awarded the Peace Prize to Obama in 2009 for doing absolutely nothing.
"And the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize goes to... Yan Shen, for helping to further the state of race relations in the United States by making people realize that harmonious race relations should be based upon mutual respect..."
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