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Updated: 1 year 44 weeks ago
Electronics with carbon nanotubes
From mobile phones and laptops to Xboxes and iPods, it is difficult to think of any aspect of modern life that has not been touched by developments in electronics, computing and communications over the last few decades. Many of these technological advances have arisen from our ability to create ever smaller electronic devices, in particular silicon-based field effect transistors (FETs), which has led to denser, faster and less power-hungry circuits.
Vision on a chip
If you think of medical prostheses, then artificial limbs, hip replacements or cochlear implants may spring to mind. These are all undoubtedly impressive feats of medical engineering, but scientists are now attempting to develop something altogether more complex – a retinal prosthesis. This is a device designed to restore some vision to blind people by bypassing damaged photoreceptors in the retina and stimulating the neuronal cells at the end of a still healthy optic nerve.
Closing in on the gamma-ray sky
Over the last century our window on the universe has been widened by a staggering amount. From observations in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which spans one octave, astronomers have extended their view in two different directions. We are now able to study the cosmos in the long-wavelength radio and microwave regions right up to the ultrashort wavelengths of X-rays and gamma radiation – an increase of over 70 octaves.
Categories: News
Key to the quantum industry
Technology that exploits the strange rules of quantum mechanics to guarantee the security of encrypted messages is the first product of a new quantum-information industry to reach the market, as Andrew Shields and Zhiliang Yuan explain As theories go, quantum mechanics has certainly been successful. Despite its many counterintuitive predictions, it has provided an accurate description of the atomic world for more than 80 years.
Equations as icons
Why is it that particular equations, formulas and expressions become icons, asks Robert P Crease When the 14-year-old Richard Feynman first encountered eiπ + 1 = 0, the future physics Nobel laureate wrote in big, bold letters in his diary that it was "the most remarkable formula in math".
The costs of replacing Trident
Replacing the UK's Trident nuclear-weapons system would divert the country's declining workforce of physical scientists from tackling global threats
such as climate change, argues Stuart Parkinson This month the UK parliament will vote on one of the most important defence issues the country has faced: whether or not to replace its Trident nuclear-weapons system when it reaches the end of its lifetime some 20 years from now.
The Trident solution
Refurbishing the UK's Trident nuclear-weapons system would be better than replacing it Life is far from simple in the post-Cold War world. The neat US-Soviet divide is long gone, having been replaced by a more complex geopolitical reality in which countries like North Korea and Iran have fledgling nuclear programmes. So what should a country like the UK do about its nuclear weapons? The answer for the British government is simple.
The magnet in the electron
The best measurement ever of the electron’s magnetic moment allows us to re-evaluate the fine-structure constant and put quantum electrodynamics to the ultimate test, explains Gerald Gabrielse What do the massive Earth and the tiny electron have in common? The unusual answer is that both act as if they have a magnet lurking inside them.
The science of origami
The science underlying paper-folding is leading to new technological and artistic applications for the centuries-old craft of origami, as Robert J Lang describes Most people think of origami, the Japanese art of folding paper, as good for little more than making toys and trinkets. Indeed, you might imagine that the closest it comes to practical utility is in the making of paper aeroplanes – and even that is not very close.
Shot in the dark
A cosmic collision between two galaxy clusters known collectively as the Bullet Cluster has provided researchers with persuasive evidence for the existence of dark matter, describe Douglas Cloweand Dennis Zaritsky In 1933 the astronomer Fritz Zwicky unearthed a puzzle that has kept researchers busy ever since.
Hidden genius
Why is James Clerk Maxwell such an obscure figure in the eyes of the public?
As most readers will know, 2005 was the International Year of Physics, marking the centenary of Einstein's five great papers on relativity, light and atoms. Far fewer will realize that we are now drawing to the end of "Maxwell Year", which has been organized to recognize the scientific genius of James Clerk Maxwell, who was born 175 years ago.
Physicists who fancy a flutter
The age-old practice of betting on science is alive and well among modern physicists. Martin Griffiths spoke to a few of the gambling fraternity
Earlier this year Jorge Hirsch believed he had found a flaw in the reigning "BCS" theory of low-temperature superconductivity, claiming that in certain circumstances it violates Lenz's law of electromagnetism. The University of California San Diego theorist was keen to put his claim to the test but no experimentalist was willing to take him up on it.
Active galactic nuclei
New X-ray observations are expanding our view of the black holes that exist at the centreof many galaxies, as Andrew Fabiandescribes You may not realize it, but the sky is littered with black holes – regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. In the Milky Way, for instance, black holes a few times more massive than the Sun grow by accreting gas from companion stars within binary systems.
Categories: News
Colourful calculations
The formidable computational power of lattice QCD is finally allowing researchers to make solidpredictions about the force that binds quarks inside protons and neutrons, describes Christine Davies Understanding how the universe works at the most fundamental scale is often likened to peeling away the layers of an onion. The outermost layer of the onion represents atoms, and we have known about these for a century or so.
The book of nature
Galileo's famous metaphor of the "book of nature", which he used to defend the work of scientists from religious authorities, can be dangerous today, says Robert P Crease
In 1623 Galileo crafted a famous metaphor that is still often cited by scientists. Nature, he wrote, is a book written in "the language of mathematics". If we cannot understand that language, we will be doomed to wander about as if "in a dark labyrinth".
A global venture
An educational centre in Cape Town shows what can be done to boost science in Africa
Physics, like Physics World, is an international endeavour. In this age of rapid global communication, it is essential for all physicists to know what their colleagues around the world are doing. No physicist could possibly build a successful career by only talking or listening to people in their own country.
James Clerk Maxwell: a force for physics
Born 175 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell carried out the first profound unification of nature's forces. Francis Everitt examines the immense contributions of the greatest mathematical physicist since Newton
Unless one is a poet, a war hero or a rock star, it is a mistake to die young. James Clerk Maxwell – unlike Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, the two giants of physics with whom he stands – made that mistake, dying in 1879 at the age of just 48.
Quiz of the year
The answers to this year's quiz are all based on events that were reported in Physics World over the last 12 months. There is a prize of £50 for the reader who gets the most questions right
Picture questions
A. Whose manuscripts were bought by the Royal Society for £1.15m?
B. Which new synchrotron facility will open its doors next month?
C. Which two famous physicists are ìmorphedî in this composite?
D.
Drawing conclusions from graphene
In a time when cutting-edge scientific research is expensive and complex, it seems absurd that a breakthrough in physics could be achieved with simple adhesive tape. But in 2004, Andre Geim, Kostya Novoselov and co-workers at the University of Manchester in the UK did just that. By delicately cleaving a sample of graphite with sticky tape, they produced something that was long considered impossible: a sheet of crystalline carbon just one atom thick, known as graphene.
Smart lenses
If you wear glasses and want to protect your eyes from harmful ultraviolet rays when you step outside into the bright sunshine, you can do a number of things. You can switch to a pair of prescription sunglasses or don some clip-on shades. Alternatively, you can invest in a pair of glasses with "photochromatic" lenses, which go dark in strong sunlight.
Such lenses are said to be "smart" because they can adapt to their environment without human intervention.
About this image
Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Image has been modified.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System. An uninterrupted view of the Sun is achieved by operating SOHO from a permanent vantage point 1.5 million kilometers sunward of the Earth. SOHO was designed to observe the Sun continuously for at least two years.
- New quasar is the oldest yet
- Closing in on the gamma-ray sky
- Milky Way Black Hole May Be A Colossal 'Particle Accelerator'
- Cosmic Lighthouses: Astrophysicists Explain Differences In Brightness Of Supernova Explosions
- Universe Offers 'Eternal Feast,' Cosmologist Says
- Origin Of Darkest Galaxies In The Universe Elucidated
- Scientists Find High Energy Systems Hidden In 'Gas Cocoon'
- Astronomer Finds Closest Gravitational Lensing Galaxy
- First negatively charged molecule found in space
- Binary star pulsates with high-energy gamma rays
- Active galactic nuclei
- Gamma ray 'clock' found creating antimatter
- Astronomers Find First Ever Gamma Ray Clock
