ALP Special Seminar: From the birth of quantum indistinguishability and quantum statistics to the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in atomic gases

In 1924, after Bose’s historic paper introducing Bose statistics was rejected,  Einstein got the paper published and, realizing the far-reaching significance of what Bose had done, extended the revolutionary idea of indistinguishability and quantum statistics from photons to atoms.  The result was astounding—the prediction of what we now call Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC).  Serious attempts at the experimental realization of BEC in an atomic gas began in 1976, led by Kleppner and Greytak at MIT, who invited me, a fresh postdoc, to begin the attempt to Bose condense atomic hydrogen.  I made little progress before leaving MIT for NIST (then NBS) in 1978. While the MIT group finally achieved BEC two decades later, the Bose condensation of atomic hydrogen was anticlimactic.  Other groups, using laser cooling and magnetic trapping of alkali atoms had already achieved BEC and were revolutionizing atomic physics.  Nevertheless, techniques developed by the MIT group were crucial to the achievement of BEC in alkali vapors.  Today, a century after the genesis of quantum statistics and the prediction of Bose-Einstein condensation, the study of ultra cold gases dominates much of the research in atomic, molecular and optical physics.