Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

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thetorque
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:33 pm

Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by thetorque » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:36 pm

Any thought on those choices? I am looking for experimental AMO and wondering what's you guys' suggestions for Berkeley and Stanford. Thank you.

donkey
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Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:24 pm

Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by donkey » Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:17 pm

I know Kasavich at Stanford and Stamper-Kurn at Berkeley are both top notch. There doesn't appear to be too many others in that area at Stanford. You might have a few more options at Berkeley. Steve Chu (97 Nobel Prize winner) is listed on Berkeley's website, but he's head of LBNL now, so I wonder how much time he has for research. They're both good, but I would personally choose Berkeley; although I am not an AMO experimentalist.

nvanmeter
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Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by nvanmeter » Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:41 pm

I'd vote Berkeley too - I've met Dmitry Budker and his group, and they were awesome. But make sure you check around Stanford Applied Physics b/c that's where all the AMO experiment seems to be. They just hired Hideo Mabuchi from CalTech and he's pretty awesome - he gave the clearest talk I've ever heard at a physics conference. Good luck.

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WontonBurritoMeals
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Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by WontonBurritoMeals » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:13 am

I'd vote Berkeley too - I've met Dmitry Budker and his group, and they were awesome.
Dmitry Budker is my grand-father advisor! (my advisor's advisor)

His research group seems pretty cool, but of course I'm biased. I can guarentee that he's a really great guy who is always entertaining and gives great talks. He'll even give you Ramen noodles if you stay in the lab and work though he did pressure my advisor into writing a book with him.

May the wind be always at your back,
-The Living Alchemist

thetorque
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:33 pm

Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by thetorque » Wed Mar 26, 2008 2:28 am

Thank you for everyone's input.

Btw, did you mean the Atomic Physics book? May I ask who is your advisor ?

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zxcv
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Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by zxcv » Wed Mar 26, 2008 2:42 am

@thetorque - Come on now, I'm sure you can Google better than that! Google even tells me that his adviser donated $355 to a certain presidential candidate while a grad student at Berkeley. Ouch!

thetorque
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:33 pm

Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by thetorque » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:54 pm

I just typed according to my memory and haven't googled any...

thetorque
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:33 pm

Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by thetorque » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:57 pm

Do Stanford and Berkeley AMO groups collaborate a lot? I know it's not like MIT-Harvard CUA but since they are so close to one another...

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WontonBurritoMeals
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Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by WontonBurritoMeals » Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:59 pm

zxcv- I didn't know that. @.@

Yeah, but there were TWO people who wrote the book with him. Dr. D-erek K-imball is my advisor.

The moral of the story is: NOTHING IS SAFE FROM GOOGLE.

I just get to hear a lot of great stories about Dmitry all of the time, even better of course because K-imball has an almost perfect mock-russian accent. K-imball just had his first kid and Dmitry was kind of scaring his wife before he knew her well. Before she left, he told her, "Never undestimate the importance of D-erek's Physics," in kind of a russian megalomanic tone. Anyway, she found it amusing.

I just know that it's pretty hard to find a good advisor, but that Dr. Budker seems to be respectful, and takes life with a bit of humor.

One more anecdote: I asked my advisor what the book was for, "It isn't really structured well as a complete textbook. What class would it be for? But it's not really a reference book because mainly it has lots of problems in it. It's not really a book of problems either because it has too much reference stuff in it. So what kind of book is it?"

"Uh... I dunno! Let me check the introduction. I think the introduction was well-written. Maybe I wrote it..."

*Looks through it without a definite answer*

"Well basically, we would run into problems that we couldn't solve so we'd solve them and then write them down in the book."

May the wind be always at your back,
-Wonton Burrito Meals

thetorque
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:33 pm

Re: Berkeley or Stanford for AMO?

Post by thetorque » Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:20 pm

I think the book is a good supplementary to any AMO course but definitely not a stand alone one. I like the way it presents the material in a "back-of-the-envelope-calculation" fashion. The most important part is that you understand the reason behind every single approximation.

To zxcv - now I got what you meant. I own the book and remember that in the book Dr. Derek Kimball was listed as a graduate student back then (if I am not mistaken). I don't think WBM's advisor is DeMille since he's at Yale and I believe WBM is somewhere around CA? I was just asking to make sure without googling.. but yeah ! You were right.



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