Normal metals have an equal number of electrons with spin “up” and spin “down”. However, when there are more spins pointing up than down, or vice versa, the metal becomes a ferromagnet. Furthermore, the unpaired electrons responsible for the magnetism are pinned by the metal lattice and cannot move. This is what happens in iron. […]
The history of science is littered with famous scientists who pushed the ‘wrong idea’, Perl told PhysicsWeb. And research organisations do not have a good track record of controlling the direction of scientific discoveries. He points out that all efforts to produce energy from controlled nuclear fusion have failed, despite the massive investment in fusion […]
On page 38 of this provocative book, Thomas Gold describes how he began “nosing around in the field of petroleum geology” only after establishing himself as an esteemed astronomer and physicist, and having been elected as a member of several prestigious learned societies. He would not recommend a scientist of lesser standing, “however brilliant”, to […]
When it comes to employing new graduates, scientific institutions are increasingly keen to take on people who have practical scientific experience as well as the academic understanding that a physics degree provides. One way in which undergraduate students can gain this vital experience – and hence improve their job prospects – is by doing work […]
Jaakkola observed two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensation (2D BEC) in a gas of specially prepared hydrogen atoms adsorbed on the surface of liquid helium. In Bose-Einstein condensation all the particles in a system collapse into a single quantum state that has many unusual and novel properties. Atomic hydrogen was once considered the epitome of a quantum gas, […]
Colloids are also immensely important in a range of industries. Although the products themselves are low-tech – paint, mayonnaise, toothpaste and ice cream, for instance – the physics underpinning these industries is extremely complex and challenging. In the early 1990s several multinational companies with R&D centres in the UK realized that they simply did not […]
Read article: Quantum solitons
Two of the most remarkable properties of light – squeezing and solitons – are being combined in a new generation of experiments that could revolutionize optics and communications
“This is certainly the quickest movement since we started measurements in Greenland in 1928, ” says Torsten Neubert, who heads DMI’s Solar-Terrestrial Physics Department. Neubert thinks that this acceleration points to a switching of the magnetic poles, perhaps within the next thousand years, something that could have dire consequences. “In the period up to a […]
Researchers at the Dubna Laboratory of Heavy Ion Nuclear Reactions in Russia, headed by Yuri Oganessian, collaborating with a team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, made the discovery by firing a rare isotope of calcium at a plutonium target. They bombarded the plutonium-244 day and night for a month, finding one […]
The technique works because two different ions, gadolinium and europium, are in the phosphor material. The UV light boosts a gadolinium ion to its excited state. This excess energy is then transferred to two europium ions, both of which emit one photon of red visible light as they drop back down to the ground state. […]
