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PhysicsWeb gets new look

05 Nov 2001

When the first Bose-Einstein condensate was created in an atomic gas in 1995 - a feat that has just been recognized with the award of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physics - the World Wide Web was in its infancy. Although some organizations issued press releases by e-mail at the time, journalists had to wait for a fax from Stockholm to find out who had won the prize.

Six years on, all that has changed. Now it is possible to watch the chair of the Nobel physics committee announce the winners live over the Web, and sites like PhysicsWeb – the Web site of Physics World – race to be first with the news. Last month was a particularly busy month for PhysicsWeb: not long after an article about the Nobel prize was uploaded and e-mailed to regular users, the site was completely redesigned, complete with a much improved PhysicsJobs service.

Since it was first launched at the end of 1997, PhysicsWeb has been one of the most popular physics sites in the world. Every day thousands of users visit physicsweb.org to find out about the latest news in physics, to check out job opportunities, or to take advantage of one of the largest collection of physics links and resources on the Web. Other attractions include the virtual laboratory, a business directory, the conference list, and selected articles from Physics World, including the annual indexes from 1997 onwards. The enhancements to PhysicsJobs mean that job seekers can now post their CVs on line, where they can be searched by employers looking for new staff, as well as viewing vacancies.

Another recent Web development at the Institute of Physics is www.physics.org. This “one-stop shop for any question on physics” is aimed at school students, teachers and anyone else who has ever complained that there is too much physics information on the Web. The site uses a powerful natural language programme to provide answers to questions, and can tailor its output for different types of user.

The Nobel Foundation now has a magnificent Web site that has information about all the prize winners right back to 1901, when Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen won the first physics prize for the discovery of X-rays. The Bose-Einstein community also has an excellent site at Georgia Southern University with links to over 70 BEC research groups worldwide. We hope that you are equally impressed with the new-look PhysicsWeb.

Trouble at CERN

All is not well at the birthplace of the Web. In June the CERN particle-physics laboratory was issuing press releases headlined “1745 days to the LHC and counting”. By the end of September PhysicsWeb was running stories headlined “Collider costs shake CERN”. It is now obvious that the lab has substantially underestimated the cost of its flagship project – the Large Hadron Collider – by some SwFr 850m. The final cost to the lab is now expected to be almost SwFr 3.7 bn (see page 7, print version). CERN’s member states are understandably angry.

In recent years CERN has done much to expand its programme beyond a core of conventional high-energy physics, and it would be a shame if these programmes were cut back to pay for the LHC, as seems inevitable. Similarly, an organization that receives over SwFr 1000m of tax-payers money every year has a duty to make its research accessible to the public, and this work should be protected despite the LHC problems. However, the lab has only paid lip-service to calls to transfer the technology it develops to the wider world. In the past CERN staff have disdained such commercial activities, but right now they could do with the money.

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