Hubble upsets star-formation theories
The stellar history of local galaxies is calculated by plotting the different size and brightness of stars in the target galaxy. However, when viewed from Earth, star systems and star clusters can som...
Laser accelerators receive a boost
Physicists hope to develop new ways of accelerating particles because of the high cost and large size of traditional accelerators. Electrons in standard accelerators gain energy by surfing large elect...
Optical computing moves forward
The pairs are created by illuminating a semiconductor quantum well with a pulsed laser diode. A slight voltage difference on the semiconductor keeps the electron and the hole in separate levels inside...
Bucky ball memories
Buckyballs, nanotubes and related structures have great potential for storage applications because their small size offers the possibility of high switching speeds and low power consumption. However, ...
Henry Kendall dies
Friedman, Kendall and Taylor scattered beams of high-energy electrons from liquid hydrogen and deuterium targets. They found that electrons were more likely to be scattered at large angles than was pr...
Putting the quantum brakes on light
Electromagnetically induced transparency relies on interference between different electronic transitions in an atom and has been used to make opaque media transparent at certain wavelengths in the pas...
A ‘sticky’ theory
The French team studied the behaviour of air bubbles on the surface of the sticky polymer film attached to a metal probe. The number and size of the bubbles depends on the surface roughness of the fil...
Physics, biscuits and the public
Scientists often complain that the media do not report their work. However, according to Fisher, this is not because journalists are not interested in science but because they have a fear of looking f...
