NASA revises Mars missions
NASA’s Mission Control Center hoped that the Deep Space Two micoprobe had landed safely and gone into a ‘sleep’ safety mode. But all attempts to contact the probes have failed. Durin...
Students reject revamped physics degree
In a series of interviews with a wide cross-section of students who remained in the physics programme, Booth and Ingerman discovered that many students could not adequately explain the links between t...
UK physics gets new funding boost
The JIF scheme is funded by the UK government and the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest biomedical research charity. It was set up after several reports found that a shortage of state-of-the-a...
XMM launches
XMM will be in a highly elliptical orbit to keep it away from interference caused by the Sun’s glare. The telescope’s large size and unusual orbit explains why XMM was launched from Ariane...
Read article: Explaining high-Tc superconductors
Explaining high-Tc superconductors
Even a decade and a half after the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic compounds containing copper-oxide planes, these materials continue to puzzle condensed-matter theorists. T...
Read article: Quantum gravity presents the ultimate challenge to theorists
Quantum gravity presents the ultimate challenge to theorists
Physics in the 20th century is founded on the twin pillars of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. However, in spite of the enormous successes of each theory individually, the two appear to...
Water transfers energy at ultrafast rate
As a water molecule is excited by the laser pulse, it can only drop back to a less excited state by releasing the excess energy. This energy causes the O-H bonds to stretch and vibrate. As the bonds v...
Electrons trapped by laser beam
The experiment was carried out inside a vacuum chamber filled with a low density nitrogen or argon gas. A wave plate – in the form of a small circular piece of material – was inserted into...
Helium beam moves into sharper focus
Physicists have tried for years to develop a beam of atoms that could be focused as easily as electrons and photons. The helium atoms are fired at 1 km/s through a micron diameter nozzle past a set of...
UK nuclear lab gets new management
The UK government has been trying for some time to incorporate private-sector practices into government-run research centres. AWE Management replaces Hunting-BRAE, who were awarded a seven-year contra...
