Read article: End of the line for LEP
Hints that the elusive Higgs boson – the holy grail of particle physics – had finally been sighted prompted CERN to extend LEP operation by five weeks. But in a race against time particle physicists failed to find convincing evidence to justify the continued operation of the accelerator. While the latest results from all four […]
Read article: Vortices get in a spin
Ordinary experimental fluids are subject to effects like viscosity and can be difficult to manipulate. Durkin and Fajans therefore used a cylindrical column of magnetically confined electrons to simulate a perfect fluid. Electron density is equivalent to fluid vorticity, and this strongly magnetized electron column behaved as a vortex. The researchers used a photocathode to […]
Read article: A celebration of science
Physics is well catered for within the week’s activities. A mock spaceship is part of an exhibition exploring the sun’s activity and how it affects us, and a film – Inspired by Nature – emphasises the link between naturally occurring phenomena and everyday products and appliances. An exhibition in Paris aims to demystify radioactivity by […]
A supernova explosion marks the death of a certain type of star. During the evolution of these stars, nuclear reactions take place at their cores, creating light elements like hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements are produced as the chain reaction proceeds, but iron is the heaviest element that it is energetically favourable for the star […]
Atoms move through the crystal lattice of a solid by a process called diffusion. The atoms migrate by swapping places with ‘point defects’ such as vacancies – empty spaces in the lattice – and ‘interstitial’ atoms, which float between the regularly spaced atoms. In a semiconductor structure, a solid is doped with ‘foreign’ atoms that […]
Read article: Bridging the North-South divide
From the pure beauty of general relativity to modern high technology, physics is a fascinating and worthwhile subject, leading to both vast new industries and far-reaching speculations about the world in which we live. However, physics does not necessarily need advanced equipment or the latest supercomputers for worthwhile research to be carried out. In some […]
Read article: History found in a grain of sand
Hari Seldon, the fictional creator of “psychohistory” in Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series of novels, predicts the imminent demise of the First Galactic Empire after a 12 millennium run and establishes the Foundation on a planet at the galaxy’s edge. In doing so, he initiates a chain of events aimed at reducing the duration of the […]
Read article: Liquid hydrogen turns superfluid
Superfluids are among the most peculiar and counterintuitive of all materials. They have no viscosity, which allows an object travelling in a pure superfluid to move without friction. Similarly, they can flow effortlessly through narrow channels and pores that are virtually impermeable to conventional liquids. Superfluids are relatively rare and inaccessible, with only two known […]
Read article: Quintessence
Cosmologists have proposed that a mysterious substance called quintessence can explain why our universe is accelerating. But what is it made of?
Read article: The search for extra dimensions
The idea that the universe is trapped on a membrane in some high-dimensional space-time may explain why gravity is so weak, and could be tested at high-energy particle accelerators
