Gamma-ray bursts
The discovery of visible light from gamma-ray bursts has revealed that these puzzling objects lie among the most distant quasars and galaxies in the universe
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Read article: Gamma-ray bursts
A tale of two councils
Two of the acronyms most frequently used by physicists in the UK celebrate their fourth birthdays this month. Between them the EPSRC and PPARC fund most of the research projects performed by physicists in UK universities. The remit of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) is self-explanatory, while the Engineering and Physical Sciences […]
Chaos starts to communicate
Gregory VanWiggeren and Rajarshi Roy of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US have now used chaotic lasers to generate the complex signals of the type needed in many of today’s communications systems (G D Van Wiggeren and R Roy 1998 Science 279 1198). The chaotic laser system can be used to synchronize a […]
What is truth in science?
“What is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not wait for an answer.” Francis Bacon’s well known quotation shows Pilate to be a busy and sensible administrator, who was aware of problems but who knew how to avoid unnecessary conflict most of the time. However, his washing of hands for the trial of Jesus had […]
What’s wrong with relativism?
In his article last year, the Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont separated out some of the distinct strands in “science studies” and tried to provide a considered critique of sociology and history of scientific knowledge. He saw that there is a difference between “philosophical relativism” and “methodological relativism”. He grasped that the former view, which says […]
Superfluidity seen on microscopic scales
Bulk superfluid helium has many unusual properties – it can flow up walls and through narrow pores without resistance. Helium-4 and helium-3 become superfluid below 2.12 and 0.003 Kelvin respectively. However, only a proportion of the helium becomes superfluid at the transition temperature. This two-fluid model was confirmed experimentally by Andronikashvili in the mid-1940s. The […]
Nuclear waste dump could be unstable
The new findings is reported by Brian Wernicke and colleagues from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the current issue of Science . Since 1991 Wernicke and colleagues have been using the satellite-based Global Positioning System to measure the movement of Yucca Mountain with unprecedented precision. The team […]
NuPECC recommends future for nuclear physics
In the report NuPECC suggests that national funding agencies should become more involved during the planning stage of these new facilities because future facilities and detectors will be significantly more complex and expensive compared to present systems. It also recommends that more young researchers should be encouraged into nuclear theory groups, so that progress in […]
CERN head to move to UCL
During his five-year tenure at CERN, Llewellyn Smith has overseen an increase in funds for the Large Hadron Collider by persuading countries outside CERN, particularly the US, to become involved in the project. A theoretical physicist by training, Llewellyn Smith replaced Carlo Rubbia as director general of CERN in 1994. Prior to that, he streamlined […]
Defence diversification agency to be created
DERA has an annual turnover of £1bn, 90% of which comes from the Ministry of Defence, and is active in many areas of physics including semiconductors, materials and optics. The agency would encourage the exploitation of defence technology by industry, and the transfer of civilian technology into military programmes. For example, in the 1960s researchers […]
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