2013
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Superconductivity to meet humanity's greatest challenges
The stage is now set for superconductivity to branch out and meet some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. This is according to a topical review `Superconductivity and the environment: a Roadmap’, published today, 16 September, in IOP Publishing’s journal Superconductor Science and Technology, which explains how superconducting technologies can move out of laboratories […]
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Australian physicists cast new light on spin-bowling
As the Ashes series gets underway next week, a pair of brothers from Australia have been exploring the physics behind the spin of a cricket ball. While physicists are much more accustomed to measuring the spin of electrons, protons and neutrons, Garry and Ian Robinson, Honorary Visiting Fellows at the University of New South Wales […]
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July's Physics World: Cancer is result of default cellular safe mode, physicist proposes
With death rates from cancer have remained largely unchanged over the past 60 years, a physicist is trying to shed more light on the disease with a very different theory of its origin that traces cancer back to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago. In this month’s special issue of Physics […]
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In June's Physics World: Europe needs to engage and invest in national R&D budgets
In June’s edition of Physics World Portugal’s former science and technology minister, José Mariano Gago, calls for more investment in, and engagement with, national science budgets in light of the European Union’s (EU) stagnated investment. Gago also proposes a totally independent and credible “observatory” that would analyse national science policies and science budgets across Europe […]
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In May's Physics World: Researchers tackle collapsing bridges with new technology
In this month’s issue of Physics World, an international group of researchers propose a new technology that could divert vibrations away from load-bearing elements of bridges to avoid catastrophic collapses. Michele Brun, Alexander Movchan, Ian Jones and Ross McPhedran describe a “wave bypass” technique that has many similarities to those being used by researchers looking […]
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"Spooky action at a distance" aboard the ISS
Albert Einstein famously described quantum entanglement as “spooky action at distance”; however, up until now experiments that examine this peculiar aspect of physics have been limited to relatively small distances on Earth. In a new study published today, 9 April, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society’s New Journal of Physics, researchers have […]
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April's Physics World: Physics makes a big impact in brain-injury research
From battlefields to playing fields, worries over traumatic brain injury (TBI) have intensified recently as it has become clear that heavy knocks to the head – whether from bomb detonations or crunching sports tackles – can have serious long-term consequences. In this month’s issue of Physics World, Sidney Perkowitz, Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus at […]
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Feynman's double-slit experiment brought to life
Image: T.Weitkamp The precise methodology of Richard Feynman’s famous double-slit thought-experiment – a cornerstone of quantum mechanics that showed how electrons behave as both a particle and a wave – has been followed in full for the very first time. Although the particle-wave duality of electrons has been demonstrated in a number of different ways […]
