讲座名称:The physics of light in eighty pictures
讲座人:Michael Berry 教授
讲座时间:9月12日16:00-17:30
地点:北校区西大楼412会议室
讲座人介绍:
迈克尔•贝里爵士现为英国布里斯托大学荣休物理学教授,是当今最负盛名的理论物理学家之一。贝里爵士至少在以下四个方向做出根本性的贡献:几何相位、光学奇点、量子混沌和渐进分析,其中以他名字命名的贝里相位和贝里曲率的概念已成为众多物理学分支的基本研究工具。在纯数学领域,贝里爵士在1989年解决了渐进分析领域一个斯托克斯提出的、长达150年悬而未决的难题,他在黎曼猜想方向亦有重要贡献。贝里爵士1982年当选英国皇家学会会士,1995年当选伦敦数学学会会士以及美国科学院外籍院士,1996年被英女王封为爵士,获得的奖项主要包括狄拉克奖、沃尔夫奖、和洛伦兹奖。
讲座内容:
Classical optics is an ancient subject. But only now have we discovered a library of ‘elementary forms’, that describe light in our everyday world. Rainbows, twinkling stars, sunlight sparkling on water, and the dancing lines of light on the bottoms of swmming-pools, can be understood in a unified way using modern geometry. On fine scales, where wave interference must be considered, different geometry describes the secret lines of light’s darkness, and the fingerprints of polarisation in the blue sky – invisible to us but perceived by bees. Poets and novelists, as well as painters, have sometimes represented optical phenomena in ways surprisingly close to those of physicists. The talk is nontechnical and entirely visual.
主办单位:物理学院