David J. Wineland was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with which French physicist known for a study of the particle of light?
Serge Haroche Serge Haroche (born 11 September 1944) is a French physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David J. Wineland for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems", a study of the particle of light, the photon. This and his other works developed laser spectroscopy. Since 2001, Haroche is a Professor at the Collège de France and holds the Chair of Quantum Physics. In 1971 he defended his doctoral thesis in physics at the University of Paris VI, his research has been conducted under the direction of Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.
Speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c , is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its exact value is (approximately , or 186,282 mi/s); it is exact because the unit of length, the metre, is defined from this constant and the international standard for time. According to special relativity, "c" is the maximum speed at which all conventional matter and hence all known forms of information in the universe can travel. It is the speed at which all massless particles and changes of the associated fields (including light, a type of electromagnetic radiation, and gravitational waves) travel in vacuum. Such particles and waves travel at "c" regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial reference frame of the observer. In the theory of relativity, "c" interrelates space and time, and also appears in the famous equation of mass–energy equivalence "E" = "mc" .