Published: June 30, 2004

The mysterious world of quantum mechanics, including the theoretical possibility of teleportation, will be explored July 12 during a University of Colorado at Boulder lecture.

Steven Girvin, a professor of physics and applied physics at Yale University, will present the free public lecture "Quantum Money, Teleportation and Computation" at 7 p.m. in Duane Physics room G1B20.

His lecture will discuss quantum mechanics, focusing mostly on new research possibilities such as building a quantum computer and creating "quantum money" that is impossible to counterfeit. Quantum mechanics is the study of matter and radiation at an atomic level.

The lecture is part of the fifth annual Boulder Summer School for Condensed Matter and Material Physics, which is hosted by CU-Boulder and supported by a $780,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. This year's school focuses on a variety of atomic and condensed matter systems, including Bose-Einstein condensates, a new form of matter created in 1995 by Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell of the CU-Boulder physics department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and which won them the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics.

The school's goal is to enable students to work at the frontiers of science and technology by exposing them to a range of concepts, techniques and applications much broader than any single graduate program or postdoctoral apprenticeship can provide, according to Leo Radzihovsky, a CU-Boulder physics professor, who co-founded the school with Girvin. Additional funding for the school is provided by NIST and CU-Boulder.

For more information about the July 12 lecture call (303) 492-1515.