Oliver Cecil Simpson Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Oliver Cecil Simpson coauthored atomic-beam measurements using gravitational free fall to investigate the velocity distribution of cesium atoms. Gravity makes a particle's displacement depend on its travel time, so slower atoms are deflected more during a given path. For an ideal horizontal flight of length at speed , the downward displacement is . The measurement connects a beam's spatial distribution with its microscopic velocities, using gravity as a timing-dependent probe.[ref]