I saw Dudley Herschbach!

I know that fan posts and celebrity sightings are totally lame, particularly on blogs, but for Nobel Prize winners I make exceptions. The departments of Chemistry and Physics got together this year at my institution to bring Dudley Herschbach. Perhaps I shouldn’t say brought. The lecture was given by video conference to an auditorium (I’m told that Herschbach doesn’t travel anymore).
As a Chemical Physicist, this is about the best lecturer one could hope for. Herschbach’s Nobel Prize was given “for [his] contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes”. This work continues today and focuses on making extremely cold molecules. One possible goal of this type of work would be to make a BEC of molecules, rather than atoms. His talk yesterday focused not on BEC, but on the possibility of cooling molecules enough to allow one to study the wave nature of the thing. The idea is simple; cool the gas down enough to where the deBroglie wavelength is orders of magnitude larger than at room temperature. This can change collision properties, but one would like to know what else it could change. With atoms we understand what happens (well, sort of). For molecules this is much more challenging because there are many more things that molecules can do, particularly at low energy.
The point it this, if you get a change to see Dudley Herschbach, take it. As with many aging scientist, Herschbach is still dynamic and engaging, but is slowing down his speaking and traveling schedule. He has done, and continues to do some of the most exciting chemistry in the world.