Towards the end of the last century many physicists feared that their work was done and that the end of physics was in sight. In 1894, for instance, Albert Michelson said that “it seems probable...
“The entire scope of human experience can be viewed as a collective effect resulting from elementary particles dutifully following well-understood equations.” Statements like this excite d...
When the European Physical Society (EPS) holds its general conference in London this month, there is likely to be much talk over coffee about the need for Europe to match the United States in a variet...
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 ...
String theory dates back some 30 years, but it was the “first string revolution” of 1984 that intensified interest in this, the most promising candidate for a “theory of everything...
When astronomers train their telescopes on the heavens, they are not always looking for the most distant objects in the sky. Indeed there is much to be learnt from focusing a telescope closer to home....
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...
1. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene A fascinating and thought-provoking journey through the mysteries of space, time, and ma...
A frequent complaint at gatherings of senior physicists is that that everyone with a PhD in theoretical physics abandons research to follow a lucrative career as a “rocket scientist” in th...
There is no doubt that the world has an increasingly intense love-hate relationship with science. Physics certainly does not escape this deep ambivalence, and we naturally wonder if there is anything ...