Some 100 years after the father of the uncertainty principle was born, historians of science continue to debate the role that Werner Heisenberg played during the Second World War
Read article: Werner Heisenberg: controversial scientist
On 10 December this year the Nobel Foundation will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the award of the first Nobel prizes. As the winners of this year’s physics prize – Eric Cornell, Wolfg...
Read article: Nobel population 1901-50: anatomy of a scientific elite
When the author Michael Frayn spent two years writing Copenhagen, he had no idea how successful the play would become. He doubted that audiences would sit through a historical drama about a war-time m...
Read article: Secret letters cast light on Copenhagen
It seems unlikely that we will ever lose our fascination for the man whom David Berlinski calls “the largest figure in the history of Western science” and the author of “the greatest...
Read article: Isaac Newton: the gifted genius
Almost 40 years later, as the International Space Station takes shape, history is repeating itself. Of course, the space station has never been a scientific mission – its main purpose has always...
Read article: Not the right stuff
I was recently 60 feet underground in the museum attached to the old operations room of 11 group at Uxbridge, one of the nerve centres of the Battle of Britain, staring at pictures of senior Royal Air...
Our greatest endeavour in basic science over the past century has, undoubtedly, been the study of the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces. Although the general theory of relativity was formulated ...
Read article: Dirac, Einstein and physics
What happens when you ask some of the world's leading physicists seven questions about the past, present and future of physics?
Read article: Physics: past, present, future
Almost everyone has heard of the “Oppenheimer affair”. It took place between 1953-54 when the father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, was subjected to a humiliating show trial by th...
Read article: Atomic secrets and the red scare
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 co...
