Professor
Dan Walls| Position: | Professor of Physics |
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Quantum optics; foundations of quantum mechanics; atom optics; Bose-Einstein condensation
Prof. Walls is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He has been awarded the Paul Dirac Medal and Prize (1995) for "outstanding contributions to theoretical physics" by the Council of the Institute of Physics (U.K.) and the Einstein Medal and Prize for Laser Science of the Society of Optical and Quantum Electronics (1990).
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Dan Walls gained a BSc in physics and mathematics and a first class honours MSc in physics at the University of Auckland. He then went to Harvard as a Fulbright Scholar, obtaining his PhD in 1969. After holding post-doctoral positions in Auckland and Stuttgart he became a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Waikato where he became professor in 1980. Since 1987 he had been professor of theoretical physics at Auckland.
His major research interests centred on the interaction and similarities between light and atoms. In particular, he was fascinated by the ways that the particle-like nature of light (photons) could be controlled to make optical systems less susceptible to unwanted fluctuations. This should make possible improved telecommunications and computing systems. In recent years, he contributed greatly to our theoretical understanding of a new state of matter Bose-Einstein condensation, in which atoms act collectively like the photons in a laser beam.
Dan Walls was made a Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and New Zealand. His many medals and prizes included the award in 1995 of the Paul Dirac Medal for theoretical physics. Previous recipients include Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and several others who have gone on to achieve Nobel Prizes. "Dan Walls stands unrivalled as the most distinguished New Zealand-born physicist to have lived since Lord Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand's only Nobel laureate," says Professor Geoff Austin, head of the Physics Department at Auckland. "A notable difference between the two is, however, that the study of science had reached sufficient maturity in New Zealand in Dan's time that he was able to practise the discipline he loved, physics, living in the country that he loved, New Zealand, at the international forefront." <\body> <\html>