These latest results, according to Barker et al., indicate “high confidence” that the network being set up to monitor the CTBT can indeed verify small nuclear explosions. Concerns over the effectiveness of the monitoring network have made it extremely difficult for supporters of the treaty to have it ratified by the US congress. Only two […]
With a collision energy of 189 GeV, LEP is currently the world’s highest energy electron-positron collider. It was originally due to be shut down at the end of this year, but physicists working at the facility successfully lobbied to have its life extended and its energy increased to 200 GeV. The extension is to be […]
Bohr had escaped from German-occupied Denmark in September 1943 and crossed the Atlantic to work with British and American physicists on the Manhattan atomic-bomb project at Los Alamos. However, he returned to Copenhagen in August 1945, partly on the advice of his close contact, Sir John Anderson, who was chancellor of the exchequer and political […]
Sensenbrenner has long campaigned against ITER, an international collaboration between fusion labs in Europe, Japan, Russia and the US. He claims that ITER has soaked up valuable funds that could be used for cheaper, more effective fusion programmes, and called last week’s extension “irresponsible.” He argues that the original goal set by the project – […]
Companies are continuing to build on the tremendous success of the compact disc by developing systems that could eventually replace the traditional video recorder
Read article: Optical data storage
Outside it is a warm May evening, as two friends sit deep in discussion in a coffee house in Berne. “Besso, you must help me, I think I am going mad. How is it even thinkable that a light ray could overtake two reference systems with exactly the same speed if one is moving, the […]
The first news story in that first issue was a sneak preview of the Edwards’ report on the future of physics departments in UK universities, which concluded that 20 staff and 200 full-time-equivalent students was the minimum feasible size for a department. Some 20 or so of the 53 departments of the time did not […]
The goal of all-polymer electronics has motivated an increasing number of research groups around the world for the past 20 years. These groups hope to provide plastics – which have the advantages of low-cost processing, flexibility and toughness – with the electronic properties needed for practical circuitry. In the past few months, exciting new results […]
The report has three main recommendations: all areas of research must be given the opportunity to thrive; technology-based industries should be given the chance to grow; and education must be strengthened at all levels. To encourage research, the report states that the government must “make federal research funding stable and substantial, maintain diversity in the […]
Bill Richardson, head of the DOE, says that Livermore “will provide critical new technologies to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction [and provide] the FBI with new capabilities that could save American lives”. The partnership extends a previous agreement under which the agencies collaborated on crime-fighting technology. The move into civilian science is […]
