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Editor's choice

Oct 3, 2011

Download the Physics World supplement looking at the challenges of building and designing next-generation "big-science" facilities

In depth: Culture, history & society

The dream of open science

Matin Durrani reviews Michael Nielsen’s Reinventing Discovery: the New Era of Networked Science

Web life

SciEnts and Sciencelive – two sites that offer slightly different takes on scientific outreach and entertainment

Fermilab's next frontier

Margaret Harris learns about Fermilab's plans for the post-Tevatron era

Parting the clouds

Arnold Wolfendale reviews Earth: the Operator’s Manual by Richard Alley

Between the lines

A new biography of Stephen Hawking and a history of radioactivity, reviewed by Margaret Harris

Voyagers of discovery

John Zarnecki reviews Stephen Pyne’s Voyager: Seeking New Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery

Web life

Faraday's Cage Is Where You Put Schrödinger’s Cat – Cherish Bauer-Reich’s blog about physics and engineering – offers an unusual perspective on the life of a PhD student, teacher and researcher

Ad astra! To the stars!

Sidney Perkowitz explores how we might achieve interstellar travel

Presidential pledges

Robert P Crease proposes pledges to help voters to evaluate US presidential candidates

Quiz of the year 2011

Think you know what happened in the world of physics this year? Try our quiz

Let there be a year of light

Luisa Cifarelli calls for 2015 to be the International Year of Light

Between the lines: Christmas special

Books on time travel, calculus, science experiments for children and more, reviewed by Margaret Harris, Matin Durrani and Tushna Commissariat

Lights, camera, science

James Kakalios reviews Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema by David Kirby

Quirks of memory

Graham Farmelo reviews Einstein Wrote Back: My Life in Physics by John Moffat

Copernicus's revolutionary moment

André Goddu reviews A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel