Read article: A degree for change
Such a degree would accept students with lower mathematical ability and “build mathematical knowledge and competence during the course of study” (see UK tackles student shortage and pages 16-17, print version only). It would address the shortage of science graduates that industry is experiencing and, more crucially, it could help to reverse the alarming decline […]
The most successful applications of atomic clocks include the global positioning system (GPS) of satellites for navigation, and also the international basis of timekeeping, known as the coordinated universal timescale or UTC. Atomic clocks are also used in precision tests of fundamental theories, such as quantum electrodynamics and general relativity. Historically the increase in accuracy […]
Read article: How to get the job you really want
Whether you are about to enter the job market for the first time or have been in the workplace for years, many of the same job-hunting skills apply, discovers Valerie Jamieson
Read article: Life, the cosmos and everything
The notion that certain features of the universe, such as the values of the physical constants, may be constrained by the requirement that intelligent observers can arise was first mooted nearly 40 years ago. This “anthropic principle” has been a focus of controversy (even intense antipathy in some quarters) ever since. However, judging by a […]
Read article: Love and the two-body problem
For physicists who have fallen for the charms of one another, finding two permanent physics jobs in the same place is one of the toughest challenges they face
Read article: The Institute of Physics salary survey
How much do members earn and what do they think of their careers? Edwin Cartlidge picks out the highlights from the Institute's latest compilation of members' earnings
In the movie The Meaning of Life, the Monty Python team reminds us that we live in “an amazing and expanding universe”. Ever since the startling evidence for cosmic expansion was discovered in the 1920s, physicists have considered the possibility that the so-called constants of nature – such as the charge on the electron and […]
The Undergraduate Physics Enquiry checks the health of university physics
A drink of heavy water provides a quick and simple measurement of body water
The link between water absorption and light scattering in airborne particles is surprisingly complex
