This volume, sixth in an ongoing series of works by Princeton University Press, contains some of Albert Einstein’s more important papers on quantum theory and general relativity. Early versions of some of these papers had numerous inaccuracies in the text. This was because of the “publish or be damned” attitude prevalent at the time. Many […]
On 10 December 1997, after a session lasting two days and nights virtually without a break, politicians at the climate summit in Kyoto, Japan, agreed a protocol limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases from developed countries. The agreement is not as strong as many countries and environmental groups would have liked – and participants have […]
A report claims that the European Space Agency is considering joint programmes with the military in space
Germany is thought to have some of the most highly trained and productive workers in the world. However, new data from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) in London show that workers in the US are even more productive and British workers come third. “The main reason for taking an interest in […]
France's newest nuclear physics facility - the SPIRAL facility for radioactive nuclear beams in Caen - has accelerated its first beams
Despite the popularity of cheap plastic lenses, glass lenses are still essential for many applications. To make a glass lens, a gob of molten glass is dropped onto a catching tool, which compresses it into the desired shape. This glass blank is then polished to the correct magnification. However, the compression method used to manufacture […]
Frank Marshall, Will Zhang and Eric Gotthelf from the Goddard Space Flight Center, and John Middleditch of Los Alamos National Laboratory found the star by studying data from NASA’s Rossi X-Ray satellite. They have calculated that the star is spinning over 60 times per second, twice as fast as any previously known pulsar. The pulsar […]
First published November 1997 in Physics World As the sixth director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, John Browne faces broad challenges at a critical time in the laboratory’s history. After a lifetime of secrecy – the first atomic weapons were built there in 1945 – public concerns are forcing the lab to become more […]
The analyses were commissioned by Sir John Cadogan, director general of the research councils, who chairs a panel that is reviewing the UK science budget. He is using the SWOT analyses to help him judge the impact of publicly-funded research on the government’s long-term objectives. Cadogan is also consulting professional bodies and learned societies to […]
Leo Esaki, the physicist who is president of the University of Tsukuba, is one of the joint winners of this year's Japan Prize
