Actually creating such condensates fell to Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who made one out of rubidium atoms, and Wolfgang Ketterle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who did the same with sodium.

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Just to prove that his atoms really were acting as single waves, Dr Ketterle made two condensates at the same time, and allowed them to merge, thus creating ripple-like interference patterns of the sort that might be seen if two stones were thrown simultaneously into the same pond.

ECONOMIST: The 2001 Nobel prizes: Playing catch-up | The