2018 Nobel Prize winner, Donna Strickland, on laser physics

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

When the first laser was built in 1960, it was an invention looking for an application. Science fiction found uses for these phenomenally powerful beams of light long before real world applications were developed. Think Star Wars light sabres and people being sliced in half. Today lasers are used for everything from hair removal to state of the art weapons. Working with her supervisor Gerard Mourou in the 1980s, the Canadian physicist, Donna Strickland found a way to make laser pulses that were thousands of times more powerful than anything that had been made before. These rapid bursts of intense light energy have revolutionised laser eye surgery and, it’s hoped, could open the doors to an exciting range of new applications from pushing old satellites out of earth’s orbit to treatments for deep brain tumours. Donna tells Jim Al-Khalili why she wanted to work with lasers and what it feels like to be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics in 55 years. Producer: Anna Buckley

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.
0:04.7	Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.
0:08.8	Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.
0:11.2	Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.
0:15.0	It's in the hands of the creator.
0:16.7	It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.
0:20.7	If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing.
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0:36.0	Hello, I'm Jamelele.
0:38.0	I've been wanting to interview Donna Strickland ever since she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize for physics at the end of
0:44.6	last year. Donna's the first woman to get the physics prize in 55 years and it was
0:50.8	for her work on lasers.
0:53.0	Lasers famously concentrate enormous amounts of light energy into a very small area.
0:58.0	Donna found a way of making lasers that were a thousand times more powerful and more precise than anything
1:04.9	that had been created before. Once upon a time lasers were an invention
1:09.1	looking for an application. That's hardly the case today. They're used for everything from hair removal to state-of-the-art weapons.
1:17.0	Donner's invention has already transformed laser eye surgery and could open up a whole new set of possible applications.
1:25.0	Donna Strickland welcome to the life scientific.
1:27.0	Thank you very much.
1:28.0	I have to begin first by congratulating you on winning the Nobel Prize
1:31.0	and indeed the first woman to win the physics
	...

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