Read article: Black holes and beyond
Black holes and beyond
Belief in the existence of black holes is the ultimate act of faith for a physicist
Read article: Black holes and beyond
Read article: Nature’s geometric uniqueness
Nature’s geometric uniqueness
The momentous complexity of modern physics is often seen as a stumbling block whenever one is asked to explain to the wider public – or to new students – how beautiful all of it is, and ho...
Dark matter in poetic measure
The wonder of astronomy is expressed in a collection of poems by Rebecca Elson
Read article: Was Aristotle the first physicist?
Was Aristotle the first physicist?
Many think that the Greek philosopher impeded science - but Michael Rowan-Robinson disagrees
Read article: Life after another RAE
Life after another RAE
Some 15 years and four RAEs later, departments are no longer judged against some statistical average but in terms of the quality of their research as measured against national and international standa...
Read article: Marconi’s painful centenary
Marconi’s painful centenary
The Marconi story (see article) has featured a cast of interesting characters. Marconi himself was a larger-than-life scion of a wealthy Irish-Italian family, an energetic mix of entrepreneur, invento...
The reality of a brane new world
This review first appeared in the news section of PhysicsWeb on 8 November. It is said that one of the world’s most eminent quantum-gravity theorists was once asked to explain in his institution...
A history of the electron with no holes
A full review by Per Dahl, formerly at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, appears in the December issue of Physics World. Somewhat for convenience, the simplistic answer to the question “...
Read article: Are physicists useful?
Are physicists useful?
“But the greatest error of all is mistaking the ultimate end of knowledge. For some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper; some to entertain the mind with variety...
Secrets and surprises of the Sun
There has been a growing awareness in the scientific community – and to some degree among the reading public – that the Sun is a marvellously variable and mysterious object about which we ...
