Date/Time
Date(s) - 17/09/2008
3:20 pm - 4:20 pm

Title: 100 years of Liquid Helium: Celebrating Research by Canadians

Speaker: Dr. Allan Griffin

Institute: University of Toronto

Location: ABB 102

Description:

We first review the historic liquefaction of helium in 1908 in Leiden by Kamerlingh Onnes. Since then, Canadian research has played a major role in unraveling the mysteries of this amazing liquid. This started with liquifying helium at Toronto in 1923 by Shrum and McLennan. In 1938, Allen and Misener working at Cambridge University made the dramatic discovery of zero viscosity below 2.18K. This led to the realization (by London, Tisza and Landau) that superfluid helium was a “quantum liquid”, which exhibited macroscopic quantum effects. Using neutron scattering, pioneering measurements on superfluid helium were made at AECL in Chalk River in the period 1955-1970 by Hurst, Henshaw,Woods and Cowley.