Further information
Professor Leszek Frasinski
Professor Leszek Frasinski, Professor of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Department of Physics presents his inaugural lecture “On the edge of quantum reality: probing molecules with intense laser fields”.
In the Chair – Professor Jonathan Marangos, Director of Blackett Laboratory Laser Consortium
Vote of Thanks – Professor Keith Codling, J. J. Thomson Physical Laboratory, University of Reading
Abstract: In the last two decades, probing molecules with light has been developed to a high degree of instrumental sophistication. Using synchrotron radiation, intense laser pulses and coincidence techniques we can currently study the making and breaking of chemical bonds on the attosecond timescale. This experimental progress on one hand leads to practical applications in medicine and industry and on the other hand examines the foundations of quantum mechanics posing such questions as: Can we understand what Feynman didn’t? Are there fractions of a photon? How do we grasp reality? Can we observe what is not observable? The speaker will also consider how to save Schrödinger’s cat, why cosmologists believe in parallel universes and why God needs no dice. The lecture will finish with a demonstration showing that we all use the scientific approach in everyday life.
Biography: Leszek Frasiński obtained his doctorate in 1980 at the Jagiellonian University in
Kraków, Poland. In 1981 he came to the University of Reading to work as a research assistant
with Mike Tinker on the spectroscopy of molecular ions. Later he joined Keith Codling in
synchrotron radiation studies of molecules carried out at the Daresbury Laboratory and in 1984
he was appointed lecturer at Reading. In 1986 Leszek Frasiński pioneered probing molecular
dynamics with intense laser pulses. The experiments were conducted at the Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, the Saclay Laboratory in France, the FOM Institute in Amsterdam and Lund University
in Sweden. At Reading, he was appointed reader in 1995 and professor in 2006. A year later he
joined the Blackett Laboratory Laser Consortium at Imperial College London. His current research
seeks the fundamental understanding of the electron dynamics in the chemical bond.