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...
Paul Dirac published the first of his papers on "The Quantum Theory of the Electron" 70 years ago this month. The Dirac equation, derived in those papers, is one of the most important equations in phy...
Read article: Paul Dirac: the purest soul in physics
Reviewed by John Maddox If war is too important to be left to the generals, then surely the research community should be on its guard against leaving the history of discovery to the historians of scie...
Joseph John Thomson – universally known as J J – discovered the electron 100 years ago this month
Read article: 100 years of the electron: from discovery to application
