Culture, history and society

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Gems from the Physics World archive: Isaac Asimov

Confused by the twin paradox? Maybe philosophy can help

Robert P Crease discusses a puzzle that goes to the heart of science and philosophy

Around the world in 16 orbits: a day in the life of the International Space Station

Kate Gardner reviews the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Opinion and reviews

Tycho Brahe statue overlooking the Østervold Observatory in Denmark

Rambling tour of Europe explores the backstory of the Scientific Revolution

1:10 scale model of Lomonosov’s laboratory

Stop this historic science site in St Petersburg from being sold

A breezy tour of what gaseous materials do for us

Heisenberg gets ‘let off the hook’ in new historical drama based on the Farm Hall transcripts

Philip Ball reviews Farm Hall by Katherine Moar at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, which runs until 31 August 2024

Paradigm shifts: positivism, realism and the fight against apathy in the quantum revolution

Jim Baggott reviews Escape from Shadow Physics: the Quest to End the Dark Ages of Quantum Theory by Adam Forrest Kay

Constellation and Dark Matter: the TV series that could change your view of quantum mechanics

What can quantum multiple-world fiction teach us about identity, ask Robert P Crease and Jennifer Carter

Physics cookbook is fun but fails to gel

Megan Povey reviews Physics in the Kitchen by George Vekinis

When the world went wild for uranium: tales from the history of a controversial element

Margaret Harris reviews Chain Reactions: a Hopeful History of Uranium by Lucy Jane Santos

Could the answer to the Antikythera astronomical device emerge from a Manhattan basement?

Robert P Crease meets Michael Dubno, who is trying to solve the mystery of the ancient Antikythera mechanical device

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Features

A musician and an artist on a large stage in front of an enormous screen showing a painting

Akiko Nakayama: the Japanese artist skilled in fluid mechanics

A group of people including Tom Hanks in front of the ATLAS detector at CERN

Angels & Demons, Tom Hanks and Peter Higgs: how CERN sold its story to the world

Bruno Touschek: the physicist who escaped the Nazi Holocaust to build particle colliders

Explore more in culture, history and society

Roger Penrose: the Nobel laureate with a preference for transparencies over slideshows

Tushna Commissariat recounts a fascinating chat with Roger Penrose

Laureates on film: Nobel winners who have graced our silver screen

Chatting with Frank Wilczek and Albert Fert

A photo of Brian Josephson's paper on mattress rotation, located below a mattress being lifted up for rotation

How to rotate your mattress like a physics Nobel prizewinner

A tongue-in-cheek e-mail exchange with 1973 Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson shows that for some laureates, scientific rigour extends to ordinary life, too

Use our infographic to predict this year’s Nobel prize winners

We are expecting a prize in condensed-matter physics in 2024

Nobel predictions and humorous encounters with physics laureates

Physics World editors gaze into their crystal ball and reminisce about past Nobel winners

Physicists reveal the mechanics of tea scum

Researchers have looked at how tea scum breaks apart when stirred

The physics of cycling’s ‘Everesting’ challenge revealed

Everesting involves a cyclist riding up and down a given hill multiple times until the ascent totals the elevation of Mount Everest – or 8848 m

Shrinivas Kulkarni: curiosity and new technologies inspire Shaw Prize in Astronomy winner

"No shortage of phenomena to explore," says expert on variable and transient objects

Researchers cut to the chase on the physics of paper cuts

A paper cut “sweet spot” just happens to be close to the thickness of paper in print magazines

The Wow! signal: did a telescope in Ohio receive an extraterrestrial communication in 1977?

This podcast features an astrobiologist who has identified similar radio signals

Abdus Salam: honouring the first Muslim Nobel-prize-winning scientist

Claudia de Rham and Ian Walmsley pay tribute to the contributions of the great theorist Abdus Salam

Physics for a better future: mammoth book looks at science and society

Our podcast guest is Christophe Rossel, co-author of EPS Grand Challenges

Pumping on a half-pipe: physicists model a skateboarding skill

Variable pendulum describes how energy is pumped into the system

Abdus Salam: celebrating a unifying force in global physics

Our podcast guests are Claudia de Rham and Ian Walmsley at Imperial College

Rumours spread like nuclear fission, say physicists

Neutrons are rumours and people are uranium isotopes in new model

The pink trainers of a runner splashing through water against a black background

Could humans run on water?

Scientists have investigated whether we could mimic basilisk lizards, on Earth or elsewhere

Aperiodicity: the dance event bringing non-repeating patterns to life

Matin Durrani reviews Aperiodic – an art-science performance from South West Dance Theatre

Clams and algae collaborate to harvest sunlight very efficiently

Symbiotic relationship is explored by physicists

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