Dr. William Phillips Innovative Lives Presentation
odd: label: General
content: Camera 1

Total Running Time: 60:00

Anita Cater, Lemelson Center Education Specialist, welcomes students and provides introductory remarks. Dr. Phillips begins the program by explaining where he works, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and what they do-maintain standards of measurement such as length, mass, voltage, and time. Discussion points that are set forth are: What does it mean to be cold? How do laser beams make things cold? What do we keep cold things in? How do we to trap gases? Why make gas cold? How can we make the best clocks? Phillips discusses his background growing up in Pennsylvania and shows home movies of himself and his siblings. As a child he was curious about the world and how things worked. By showing overhead diagrams and through demonstration, Dr. Phillips explains the use of liquid nitrogen. Phillips puts flowers, a racket ball and rubber bands into a container filled with liquid nitrogen. He removes these items and demonstrates that the flowers freeze and are easily crushed, the racquet ball shatters when thrown on the floor, and the rubber bands crumble. Balloons that were placed in a container of liquid nitrogen come out flat because the warm air condensed. Liquid nitrogen is 77 degrees above absolute zero. Discussion of slowing down atoms and atoms absorbing light. Demonstration of levitron-magnet bottle-to trap atoms. Concludes by showing the first fountain clock made by NIST.
name: label: Collection Interviewee
content: Phillips, William, Dr., 1948-
label: Collection Creator
content: Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Dr. William Phillips Innovative Lives Presentation
label: See more items in
content: Dr. William Phillips Innovative Lives Presentation / Series 1: Original Videos
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2001 April 27
container: label: Container
content: Box 1, Video OV 770.1
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Moving Images