Read article: Reflecting on the performance and challenges of UK physics
It has been two years since I was last at congress: two years is a long time in physics and an even longer time in politics, where the unit of measurement is daily crises. Physicists have achieved som...
Read article: Grand challenges for the US
Along the way six “area volumes” have been published on the major subfields of physics – atomic, molecular and optical physics; plasma science; elementary particle physics; nuclear p...
Read article: Physics goes commercial
Physics has dined out on the invention of the transistor, the laser and various medical scanners for years. However, the success of these inventions has depended on researchers leaving their labs R...
English-language versions, where they exist, are given in brackets. 1 Eine Kurze Geschichte der Zeit (Buy: Amazon.de) (A Brief History of Time) Stephen Hawking (Rowohlt) 2 Im Hyperraum (Buy: Amazon.de...
Read article: Facing up to the mystery of God
“Science without religion is lame, but religion without science is blind.” Einstein’s teasing remark is just one of the many contributions by scientists to religious thought that hav...
Read article: Revenge of the science writer
Robert P Crease recalls a revealing encounter with Richard Feynman
Read article: Getting set for the election
Last month the Royal Society of Chemistry mustered together a collection of like-minded bodies – including the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Biology and the Engineering Council – ...
A more detailed review by William Mills of the International Radiation Protection Association and past president of the US Health Physics Society appears in the March issue of Physics World. In Permis...
Read article: A reference point to the cosmos
It is a tribute to the dynamism of astrophysics today, and to the achievements of the past century, that Paul Murdin and his distinguished editorial board, together with over 500 contributors, many of...
I remember arguing long and hard with a friend at a campsite in deepest Bavaria about how many stars one can see in the night sky with the unaided human eye. The answer, according to this charming new...
