The First Drop of Helium in Košice Turned Fifty
6. 5. 2019 | 1258 visits
The “coldest” seminar in the world of science took place in the auditorium of the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice at Park Angelinum, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first liquefaction of helium in Košice. The reason is that it was attended by experts in low temperature physics.
The first to come up with the idea of focusing the research at the Faculty of Sciences of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University on studying substances at very low temperatures, was professor Vladimír Hajko, its cofounder and the first dean. Research at temperatures close to absolute zero (that is -273.15 °C) required the construction of a demanding experimental and equipment base. The original low-temperature laboratory has gradually (in 2004) become the top Centre of Low Temperature Physics we have nowadays, shared by the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University and the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice.
The seminar was not at all nostalgic. Quite the opposite, the participants remembered the individual stages in the fifty years’ history of the research in the field of low temperature physics with humor. The Centre of Low Temperature Physics has become a part of the European Microkelvin Platform (MEP, Horizon 2020), which is a European research infrastructure in the field of physics and ultralow temperature technology as well as extremely sensitive measuring techniques, specifically focused on quantum technologies and quantum materials.
Text and Photo: Katarína Čižmáriková
The first to come up with the idea of focusing the research at the Faculty of Sciences of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University on studying substances at very low temperatures, was professor Vladimír Hajko, its cofounder and the first dean. Research at temperatures close to absolute zero (that is -273.15 °C) required the construction of a demanding experimental and equipment base. The original low-temperature laboratory has gradually (in 2004) become the top Centre of Low Temperature Physics we have nowadays, shared by the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University and the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice.
The seminar was not at all nostalgic. Quite the opposite, the participants remembered the individual stages in the fifty years’ history of the research in the field of low temperature physics with humor. The Centre of Low Temperature Physics has become a part of the European Microkelvin Platform (MEP, Horizon 2020), which is a European research infrastructure in the field of physics and ultralow temperature technology as well as extremely sensitive measuring techniques, specifically focused on quantum technologies and quantum materials.
Text and Photo: Katarína Čižmáriková