Dr. Brad Dinardo is associate professor of physics at Hastings College. (Courtesy photo)
HASTINGS – Dr. Brad Dinardo, associate professor of physics at Hastings College, will give an Invited Faculty Lecture titled “Lasers! And the coolest stuff in the universe!” at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in French Memorial Chapel.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
In his talk, Dinardo will explore the legacy of the laser — one of the most influential inventions in history — and explain how researchers use light to cool atoms to “utterly, inconceivably cold” temperatures.
“At these temperatures, a tiny fraction above absolute zero, atoms behave in the most peculiar ways — ways that we exploit to build new technologies like atomic clocks and quantum computers,” he said. “All in all, I’ll share how lasers are used to create, quite literally, the coolest stuff in the universe!”
The Invited Faculty Lecture is a prestigious Hastings College tradition dating back to 1967. It is sponsored by the Hastings College Lecture Series. Each spring, students select two faculty members to present on a topic of their choice during the following academic year. Dr. Cat Clifford, associate professor of English, gave the first Invited Faculty Lecture of the academic year in the fall.
Dr. Brad Dinardo joined the Hastings College faculty with a deep background in atomic and laser physics. He earned his Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and mathematics from Juniata College before completing both his Master’s and Ph.D. in physics at JILA and the University of Colorado-Boulder.
His research expertise spans the “coldest” frontiers of science, including Bose-Einstein condensation, laser cooling and “atomtronics.” When he isn’t in the lab or the classroom, Dinardo is an avid sports fan, following college football, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Colorado Rockies. He also enjoys delving into the worlds of Dark Souls and Gears of War.
