That was the conclusion drawn by John Enderby of Bristol University who gave a presentation on “Experimental physics in the UK: problems and promise” at the British Association‘s science festival in Leeds last month. Many of the practical discoveries made in physics come from small-scale physics labs. For example, semiconductors, lasers and holography, X-ray diffraction […]
New jobs statistics make interesting reading for graduating physicists
The US High Flux Beam Reactor is under attack again
Electric charge normally comes in an indivisible unit: the charge of an electron. Indeed, quarks were thought to be the only particles with fractional charge – and today they only exist in particles that have a integer charge. But last month, two groups of physicists revealed the first direct evidence that an electric current can […]
Chile has found the funds to remain part of the $184m Gemini partnership
An old debate on the universe was reborn this month
Colin Humphreys, head of materials science at Cambridge University, disclosed his ideas at a symposium on the centenary of the discovery of the electron at Cambridge. He has submitted a paper based on his ideas to Nature. Superconducting materials lose all electrical resistance below a critical temperature; but for many years, this temperature was below […]
(Updated 13 Oct)
The US government breaks the boundaries between its civilian and military nuclear programmes
The Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and one of its moons, Titan, lifts off
