Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics between AMO theory and experiment and promoting AMO theory within the general physics community. It has been involved in some capacity in most of the National Research Council target areas, i.e. precision measurements and tests of fundamental laws, ultracold physics, the development and application of ultra-intense, short wavelength light sources, ultra-fast quantum control of atoms, molecules and electrons, nanoscience, and quantum information science. The Institute is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Center for Astrophysics and Harvard University. The Armstrong Report in 1987 on "The State of Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Sciences in the United
Atomic physics be reached by excitation by light — however there are no such rules for excitation by collision processes. One of the earliest steps towards atomic physics was the recognition that matter was composed of "atoms". It forms a part of the texts written in 6th century BC to 2nd century BC such as those of Democritus or Vaisheshika Sutra written by Kanad. This theory was later developed in the modern sense of the basic unit of a chemical element by the British chemist and physicist John Dalton in the 18th century. At this stage, it wasn't clear what atoms were