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?
David J. Wineland David Jeffrey Wineland (born February 24, 1944) is an American Nobel-laureate physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physics laboratory. His work has included advances in optics, specifically laser cooling trapped ions and using ions for quantum computing operations. He was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Serge Haroche, for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems."
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" .