Some 200 Indian scientists have been brave enough to defy the widespread approval and enthusiasm for the tests inside the country by expressing their “deep dismay and unhappiness at this action ...
We’ve all had the following experience. You meet someone at a party, and they ask you what you do. You tell them you are a physicist. Quickly, they change the topic. But if you ask them if they ...
It is also brilliant theatre. The three characters – Bohr, Heisenberg and Bohr’s wife Margrethe – are on stage nearly all of the time. Notionally, they are in the Bohrs’ house,...
It is also brilliant theatre. The three characters – Bohr, Heisenberg and Bohr’s wife Margrethe – are on stage nearly all of the time. Notionally, they are in the Bohrs’ house,...
At the beginning of this century, before the advent of quantum mechanics, who could have foreseen molecular biology? And in the 1940s, before the discovery of DNA and the development of computers, who...
Is it possible to really understand asymptotic freedom, superstrings and other jargon from particle physics without knowing any relevant mathematics whatsoever? John Gribbin certainly thinks so. In a ...
You might not have thought about this analogy before, but exams are rather like experiments. Both are designed to evaluate certain parameters. Lab experiments might measure things like temperature or ...
Sometime early in the next century the miniaturization of conventional electronic devices will grind to a halt. The inexorable progress that has seen the number of transistors on a single silicon chip...
Physicists, more than most people, are accustomed to dealing with gases. Yet even physicists often treat gases as something to be taken for granted, a sort of Platonic ideal with interesting or useful...
One side effect of the increasing emphasis on maximizing the economic return on public investments in science and technology has been the growth of “foresight exercises” around the world. ...