US astronomers look to the future
The other priorities established by the panel are the ground-based 30-metre Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope, the space-based Constellation-X Observatory, expansion of the Very Large Array radio teles...
Hendrik Casimir and John Ward
Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir was born in the Hague in the Netherlands in 1909 and received his PhD from the University of Leiden in 1931. After working with Bohr in Copenhagen and Pauli in Zurich, he...
Single molecules demonstrate resolving power
However, the resolution possible with scanning near-field optical microscopy (NSOM), as this approach is called, is essentially limited by the size of the aperture. To improve the resolution it is nec...
How good is physics in the UK?
The 11-strong panel spent a week in the UK in April and drew on the comments of more than 150 physicists from around the world. The panel’s conclusions were presented at a meeting of UK physics ...
Data, data everywhere
Examples of lost data include the results of heavy-ion experiments at the Bevelac accelerator at Berkeley. The accelerator stopped running in 1993 but much of the data – which are relevant to re...
Mini Earth created in the lab
A conducting fluid needs to have a small ‘seed’ magnetic field before it can generate a self- sustaining field. The seed field induces electric currents in the fluid that in turn create a ...
Quantum dots detect single photons
The quantum dot device consists of a transistor made of different layers of gallium arsenide and aluminium gallium arsenide. One of the layers consists entirely of quantum dots just nanometers across....
PhysicsWeb editor moves on
“When I helped create PhysicsWeb nearly three years ago, I was sure that it would be a successful site. However, sites such as PhysicsWeb do not rely solely on one individual, and I would like t...
Heat flow surprise in space
On Earth, convection or thermal diffusion dominates heat transfer. But these effects are extremely weak in zero gravity, and adiabatic compression can dominate. To observe local overheating and adiaba...
Read article: ‘The Quantum Project’ hits the Web
‘The Quantum Project’ hits the Web
The 32-minute film can be downloaded from Sightsound.com. Viewers are charged $3.95 to view it for up to five days, with a higher charge for permanent downloads. The film’s makers, Metafilmics, ...
