It took a Nobel Prize for Claude Cohen-Tannoudji to receive popular attention, though he had been long recognized for his accomplished research by his peers. The French physicist was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in 1997 (with Americans Steven Chuand William Phillips), but even before then had a distinguished career. While Cohen-Tannoudji's research focused on the general areas of atomic and molecular physics as well as quantum optics, his award-winning work narrowly concerned cooling atoms to near absolute zero (or ultracold) temperatures (such a measurement describes the rate of movement of atoms within matter) and trapping them, via the light of a laser. By slowing (i.e., cooling) the atoms, scientists can study them in more detail.

Cohen-Tannoudji was born April 1, 1933, in Constantine, Algeria, to Abraham Cohen-Tannoudji and Sarah (nee Sebba) Cohen-Tannoudji. He studied at Ecole Normale Superieure from 1953 until 1957, when he received his agré...