Reflections on the life of a laser pioneer
Charles Townes has written a biography – but it is not clear if it is his own or that of the laser. The laser is now such a feature of our everyday life that the remarkable story of its birth ne...
Isidor Isaac Rabi: walking the path of God
I I Rabi's work on the magnetic properties of nuclei, including the development of nuclear magnetic resonance, and his role as a peace campaigner during the Cold War have had profound and far-reaching...
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No time or ties for independent scientist
It was a beautiful October afternoon in 1963 when Julian Barbour’s life changed forever. He was travelling by train with a student friend to climb the Watzmann in the Bavarian Alps when he start...
J D Bernal: genius yes, sage no
At the age of two, John Desmond Bernal was taken by his American mother from their farm in Ireland to see his grandmother in California. He amazed other passengers on the steamship by talking in both ...
George Brown, strong supporter of US science, dies
Brown joined the science committee in 1965 and became chairman in 1990, losing his position when the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1995. The current chairman of the committee, James Sensen...
Feynman’s spirit lives on in computing
Richard Feynman, both as a man and as a scientist, excited varied reactions: you either loved him or you hated him. As a man, he was either narrow-minded and sexist, or else charming and completely fa...
Visions of Einstein
“I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural...
Boltzmann: a disordered genius
The 1860s and 1870s form one of the most exciting periods in physics, probably on a par with the 1920s and 1930s when quantum mechanics was developed. James Clerk Maxwell was working on his theory of ...
John Bell and the most profound discovery of science
Andrew Whitaker on how John Bell investigated quantum theory in the greatest depth and established what it can tell us about the fundamental nature of the physical world
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