Revealing the invisible
Physicists, more than most people, are accustomed to dealing with gases. Yet even physicists often treat gases as something to be taken for granted, a sort of Platonic ideal with interesting or useful...
A tale of two councils
Two of the acronyms most frequently used by physicists in the UK celebrate their fourth birthdays this month. Between them the EPSRC and PPARC fund most of the research projects performed by physicist...
What is truth in science?
“What is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not wait for an answer.” Francis Bacon’s well known quotation shows Pilate to be a busy and sensible administrator, who was aware of pr...
What’s wrong with relativism?
In his article last year, the Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont separated out some of the distinct strands in “science studies” and tried to provide a considered critique of sociology and hi...
Astronomers are people too
Richard Preston is best known for his best-seller on the Ebola virus: The Hot Zone. Before that, he had written a book about a group of astronomers working at the Palomar Observatory in California. Th...
Do you know your stuff?
Here I am, sitting quietly and comfortably in front of my tiny wooden desk, typing these lines on the keyboard of my laptop computer, peeping from time to time through the light linen of the curtain a...
Can the Internet cope?
Particle physics is a truly global activity, with literally hundreds of university departments around the world specializing in the subject. The basic tools of particle physics are a small number of p...
ITER must make its case
Last month, as expected, the four partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project announced a three-year extension of the ITER engineering design activity. Detailed des...
Quantum information
There is more to information than a string of ones and zeroes - the ability of "quantum bits" to be in two states at the same time could revolutionize information technology
Climate change: the challenges
On 10 December 1997, after a session lasting two days and nights virtually without a break, politicians at the climate summit in Kyoto, Japan, agreed a protocol limiting the emissions of greenhouse ga...
