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&#...
Read article: String theory: simple yet elegant
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 ...
Almost everyone has heard of the “Oppenheimer affair”. It took place between 1953-54 when the father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, was subjected to a humiliating show trial by th...
Read article: Atomic secrets and the red scare
Physicists are rightly proud of the way that basic research in the past has paid off in terms of technology that is widely used everyday. We all know the examples: transistors, lasers, optical fibres,...
“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...
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 ...
