[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 45 (Thursday, March 28, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E490]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          COLORADO UNIVERSITY ATOMIC PHYSICS PROGRAM IS NO. 1

                                 ______


                          HON. DAVID E. SKAGGS

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 28, 1996

  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Atomic and 
Molecular Physics Program at the University of Colorado, which was 
recently ranked first in the Nation by U.S. News and World Report.
  Coloradans are very proud of these CU scientists, who this year won a 
ranking above such great institutions as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and 
the University of California, in gaining this recognition.
  The 8 professors and 40 graduate students in this small but powerful 
program have reason to be proud. The No. 1 ranking was based on a 
survey of department heads and directors of graduate schools who rated 
the institutions on the excellence of scholarship, curriculum, and 
quality of both faculty and graduate students.
  Special recognition goes to CU physicists Eric Cornell and Carl 
Weiman and graduate students Jason Ensher and Michael Matthews who 
gained headlines last year when they created a new state of matter that 
was first predicted by Albert Einstein. This team, in a cooperative 
effort with the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST], 
created a new state of matter by cooling rubidium atoms to less than 
170 billionths of a degree above absolute zero. At that temperature, 
atoms lose their individual identity and combine into a superatom form. 
For more than 25 years, scientists have been working to create this 
effect.
  I've been watching the achievement of this great program for years 
and I am thrilled that they are finally getting the recognition they 
deserve. I join Chancellor Roderic Park, the faculty, students, and 
alumni at CU and physicists everywhere in celebrating the achievements 
of this great program.

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