For the first time the vibrational population lifetime of simple normal modes of polyatomic molecules in liquids has been directly measured, according to the experimenters, Alfred Laubereau, Dietrich von der Linde and Wolfgang Kaiser (Munich Technical University). Earlier the vibrational dephasing lifetime in both liquids and solids had been measured by the Munich group, who studied polyatomic molecules in liquids and lattice vibrations in diamond, and by Robert Alfano and Stanley Shapiro (General Telephone and Electronics), who measured lattice vibration lifetimes in calcite and molecular vibrational lifetimes in liquid nitrogen. Some observers believe that the technique opens a new field for the study of molecular relaxations in liquids and optical phonon relaxations in solids.