Realizing a dream

Hi all!

Welcome all to the first blog by the Bangladeshi participants of the 58th Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates - dedicated to physics (29 June - 4 July 2008, http://www.lindau-nobel.de). We will start our journey for Lindau tomorrow.

Notification of our acceptance by the Lindau Council came in mid-April 2008. Over-excited we were! However, very soon travel expenses loomed a dark cloud over our prospects of attending the meeting, we emitted a large numbers of photons and phonons of anxiety and got down from the excited state to somewhere below the ground state. Imminent final year exam, scheduled to start from June 15 2008 of Omer and Mainul added to our hopelessness. All these issues have been sorted out very conveniently. Under the patronage of Prof. A. Karim, North American Bangladeshi Islamic Council (NABIC) came forward to sponsor for two of us. Bangladesh Academy of Sciences has also agreed to sponsor the remaining one. Omer and Mainul also have no exams scheduled during the trip. Obtaining German visa was also a very smooth experience for us. En-route to Lindau, Bangladeshis at Munich will provide local hospitality. We soon introduce them to you.

We thank all the initiators of this program in Bangladesh. Thanks to Bangladesh Academy of Sciences for patronizing this event,to NABIC for supporting us, to Prothom Alo for providing superb media coverage. And lastly our deepest condolences for Fattah sir. Without him, we would not have this grand opportunity.

Twenty-five Nobel laureates including four chemistry laureates and one medicine/physiology laureate would attend the meeting. Here is the list of Nobel laureates along with their Nobel prize citations.

1.Prof. Dr. Theodor W. Hänsch -2005, "for contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"

2.Prof. Dr. Peter Grünberg -2007, "for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance"

3.Prof. Dr. Ivar Giaever -1973, "for experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively"

4.Prof. Dr. Klaus von Klitzing-1985, "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect"

5.Prof. Dr. William D. Phillips -1997, "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light"

6.Prof. Dr. John L. Hall -2005, "for contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"

7.Prof. Johann Deisenhofer [Chemistry Nobel Prize]-1988
8.Prof. Dr. Robert Huber [Chemistry Nobel Prize]-1988
9.Prof. Dr. Hartmut Michel [Chemistry Nobel Prize]-1988, "for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre"

10.Prof. Dr. James Watson Cronin -1980, "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"

11.Prof. Dr. Riccardo Giacconi-2002,"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"

12.Prof. Dr. George F. Smoot -2006, "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"

13.Prof. Dr. Martinus.J.G. Veltman -1999, "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"

14.Prof. Dr. David Gross -2004, "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"

15.Prof. Dr. Donald A. Glaser -1960, "for the invention of the bubble chamber"

16.Prof. Dr. Nicolaas Bloembergen-1981, "for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy

17.Prof. Dr. Roy J. Glauber -2005, "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"

18.Prof. Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff -1996, "for discovery of superfluidity in helium-3"

19. Prof. Dr. Brian D. Josephson -1973,"for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects"

20.Prof. Dr. Gerardus ´t Hooft -1999, "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"

21. Prof. Dr.Jack Steinberger-1988, "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino"

22.Prof. Dr. Arber Werner -The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1978, "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics"

23.Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Eigen Manfred -The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967, "for studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equlibrium by means of very short pulses of energy"

24.Prof. Rubia -1984, "for decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction"

We would start our journey to meet the Nobel laureates tomorrow-with our hearts pounding with excitement, with our eyes opalescent, with our souls overjoyed. We would try to update you on this meeting. Keep an eye on this blog.

Thanks all.

-Asif,Omer, Mainul