Posts by: Matin Durrani

By Matin Durrani

Hello everybody and welcome back to Physics World after the festive break.

If you’ve just got your hands on a brand new tablet device, the first thing you’ll want to do – apart from reading the latest issue of Physics World magazine, of course – is possibly to use it to write your latest scientific paper using every physicist’s favourite typesetting language – LaTeX.

Not so fast!

Unfortunately, making LaTeX function on a tablet device has been no easy task, as software developer Duncan Steele makes clear in a fascinating feature article in the January 2013 issue of Physics World. Thankfully, LaTeX is making the switch to tablets, but it’s not been plain sailing.

If you’re a member of the Institute of Physics, you can access the entire new issue online through the digital version of the magazine by following this link or by downloading the Physics World app onto your iPhone or iPad or Android device, available from the App Store and Google Play, respectively.

If you’re not yet a member, you can join the Institute as an IOPimember for just £15, €20 or $25 a year via this link. Being an IOPimember gives you a full year’s access to Physics World both online and through the apps. It’s the start of the year – so why not join now?

Also in the January issue we look at promoting scientific entrepreneurism in the developing world, explore the new view of the universe as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory, find out how to eradicate experimental bias in science – plus much more besides.

For the record, here’s a rundown of highlights of the issue:

• Italy cancels €1bn SuperB collider – Michael Banks examines the repercussions of Italy’s decision to axe a new particle collider that would have produced copious amounts of B mesons

• Fuelling innovation in Africa – Joining a team of entrepreneurs and technology-transfer experts in Addis Ababa, Joe Winters asks what role physics has to play in the economic growth of one of the world’s poorest nations

• Identity physics – Robert P Crease calls for your new metaphors exploiting the Pauli exclusion principle and Bose–Einstein condensation

• The blind physicist – Physicists might not like to admit it, but preconception and bias taint many of their experiments. Brian Clegg explores how this “experimenter bias” manifests itself, and looks at the measures some collaborations are taking to counter its effects

• The revolution will be typeset – As the computing world shifts from desktops and laptops to tablet-style devices, one of the most widely used tools in physics – LaTeX – is struggling to follow. Software developer Duncan Steele explains how this typesetting program is now starting to catch up

• Cool dust and baby stars – The helium that is cooling its camera is about to run out, but the data from the Herschel Space Observatory, which is designed to study how stars and galaxies form, is likely to keep sub-millimetre wavelength astronomers busy for years to come. Steve Eales explains

• Fuelling the thorium dream – Jess Gehin reviews Superfuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future by Richard Martin

• Philosophical about space–time – Clarissa Ai Ling Lee reviews Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time by Tim Maudlin

• A clean solution – Michael Duncan, John Girkin and Tom McLeish describe how an unusual cross-disciplinary collaboration between Procter & Gamble and Durham University is generating benefits for both sides

• Once a physicist – Meet Ted Hsu – member of parliament for Kingston and the Islands, Canada

• The carbon-neutral gym – Michael de Podesta wonders whether gym-goers could actually make a difference to the environment

By Matin Durrani

The latest Physics World special report, which examines the challenges for physicists in India, is ready for you to read online now.

The report contains a great mix of news, features and opinion, including a look at the work carried out a top research centres such as the Indian Institute of Science, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Raman Research Institute.

It also has a great podcast on “India’s physics rebels” – the students who resist the pressure to study engineering and let their passion for physics burn instead.

For the record, here’s a list of the main articles in the report.

Welcome to science city – Why is Bangalore home to so many top science institutes?

Igniting a passion for physics among India’s top students – What the Indian government is doing to get more students turned on to science

New horizons for the Tata institute – How one of Mumbai’s leading research centres has ambitious plans to expand into Hyderabad

Speaking up for women – An interview with Shobhana Narasimhan from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore

India sticks to the thorium trail – Why thorium is still so central to India’s energy plans

India sets its sight on Mars – Opinions are still divided over the country’s bold Martian plans

Digging deep for neutrinos – A look at India’s ambitious plans for a huge underground neutrino detector

Uniting Indian astronomy – An interview with Ajit Kembhavi from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune

Delivering on a promise – Shiraz Minwalla from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research says that India must urgently reform its education system.

The report reveals that money for India’s top physicists is thankfully not in short supply, but what India currently lacks is a critical concentration of highly capable scientists who can make the country a world leader in research and boost its innovation.

I hope you enjoy reading the report – and do let me have your comments by e-mailing pwld@iop.org.

By Matin Durrani

I wrote last week about the imminent launch of a new five-minute online film about particle physics, cosmology and love called The Theory of Everything.

I’d been to the launch in Covent Garden and quite liked the film, but some of my colleagues groaned that it sounded incredibly cheesy and that I might have been brainwashed in my judgement by meeting the cast and crew at the premiere.

Well, the film has just been released on YouTube so it’s now time for you to judge for yourself.

The company that made the film also has a Facebook competition to win a trip to see the Northern Lights.

By the way, the film wasn’t really filmed in Chile as the video suggests, but at an observatory in Mill Hill in London.

By Matin Durrani

If you’re a member of the Institute of Physics, it’s time to tuck into the December 2012 issue of Physics World, which contains a bumper reviews section with our pick of the best books for Christmas, including an extended Between the Lines.

We also take stock of the recent six-year jail sentences given to the seven Italian scientists and engineers who were members of the risk committee that gave advice to the public before the devastating 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.

If you’re a member of the Institute of Physics (IOP) you can access the entire new issue online through the digital version of the magazine by following this link or by downloading the Physics World app onto your iPhone or iPad or Android device, available from the App Store and Google Play, respectively.

For the record, here’s a rundown of highlights of the issue:

• Jail terms rock seismology – Jon Cartwright examines the fallout from the case of the seven earthquake experts who were recently jailed for making apparently misleading statements before a devastating earthquake hit the Italian city of L’Aquila in 2009

• Putting science on trial – Warner Marzocchi warns that the decision to sentence seven earthquake experts to six years in prison during the recent trial in L’Aquila could set a dangerous precedent for science

• Physics and painting – Robert P Crease looks at several books that examine how physics influenced artistic movements

• Unknown genius – A visionary who saw far ahead of his contemporaries, Edward Hutchinson Synge has been largely overlooked by the academic world, from which he worked in isolation before he was confined to a mental hospital at the age of 46. Denis Weaire, John F Donegan and Petros S Florides uncover his remarkable story

• Voyager – a mission for life – There may be no such thing as a “job for life” these days, but NASA’s Voyager mission to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond has kept hundreds of scientists busy for as much as 35 years. Mark Williamson reveals how researchers stay motivated and scientifically productive during such a long-term project

• Vital forces – Richard Jones reviews Life’s Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos by Peter M Hoffmann

• What made Bell Labs special – Andrew Gelman reviews The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner

• The why and how of it all – Tim Maudlin reviews Why Does the World Exist: an Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt and A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss

• Forming a critical mass of experts – Geoff Vaughan reviews The Neutron’s Children: Nuclear Engineers and the Shaping of Identity by Sean F Johnston

• Von Neumann’s computer – Martin Campbell-Kelly reviews Turing’s Cathedral: the Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson

• New beginnings for nuclear – Jeroen Veenstra describes how his enthusiasm for nuclear energy led him to a new country, a new language and a role in developing the energy future

• Once a physicist – Meet Nick Dunbar – a financial journalist and editor of the Bloomberg Risk newsletter

If you’re not yet a member, you can join the IOP as an imember for just £15, €20 or $25 a year via this link. Being an imember gives you a full year’s access to Physics World both online and through the apps.

Still from the upcoming short film The Theory of Everything. (Courtesy: Catsnake)

By Matin Durrani

The e-mail arrived out of the blue last week. Did I want to attend a “private screening” in Covent Garden, London, of a new short film about cosmology, particle physics and love?

It sounded interesting, particularly when writer/producer Stephen Follows from Catsnake said that he had made the film with “some of the world’s leading dark-matter physicists, both at Imperial College and at CERN”.

I was even more intrigued when Follows added that the film had been funded by the Lovestruck dating agency as a promotional tool – apparently, the company was happy for him to make any film he liked, so long as it featured love somewhere along the line.

Follows took for inspiration the book The 4% Universe by the US science writer Richard Panek, which he had just been reading and which incidentally was second in Physics World‘s top 10 books of 2011. The title refers to the fact that “normal” matter makes up only 4% of the universe – the rest being dark matter (23%) and dark energy (73%).

What intrigued me was how exactly love could be brought into a story about cosmology.

Entitled The Theory of Everything, the film will be released online in early December so I won’t spoil the plot, such as it is. But suffice to say, the five-minute professionally produced film draws a parallel between the search for love and the search for dark matter. You know both are there even if you can’t see either for real. Love affects everyone just as dark matter and dark energy affect the universe.

If you think that sounds cheesy, well it could have been – in the wrong hands – but I was impressed with the film. It packs in a surprising amount of “real” science, which was accurate too, thanks to Imperial cosmologist Roberto Trotta, who acted as informal script adviser.

Visually, I liked the way the film tried to explain the expanding universe through the main character – an astronomer – dropping a jar of chocolate Smarties onto a table and showing them scatter in all directions. There’s also a nice touch where he uses the stem of a bunch of flowers as a measuring stick, snipping off the final 4% of the tip to illustrate just how small a fraction of the universe we really understand.

Both Follows and Trotta hope the film, which was made at an observatory in Mill Hill, London, reveals the human side of science. As Trotta told the audience before the screening, “There’s so much more to science and to creativity in science than meets the eye.”

Follows envisages the film being just the first in a series of projects carried out in partnership with Imperial. It will be released on YouTube and promoted on the London Underground and Facebook.

If you want some cosmic action before then, do check out our own film about a group of students trying to detect cosmic rays on a hot-air balloon.

By Matin Durrani

If you’re lucky enough to be a member of the Institute of Physics, you’ll have had access for almost a week now to the November 2012 issue of Physics World – either in print or through our digital issue, which you can access online or via our apps for smartphone and tablet devices.

But as the November issue is a special issue devoted to “animal physics”, we felt we wanted to share the issue more widely because we know how much everyone loves animals. So from today we’re making the issue available in free downloadable PDF form.

Of course, the PDF doesn’t have all the goodies of the digital issue, which this month includes some fantastic videos and audio of animals in action. But nevertheless the PDF is packed with a series of fascinating photos and features on a selection of animals all of which have some interesting physics involved in their daily lives.

So you can read how mosquitoes survive collisions with raindrops, find out why a certain species of hornet has an in-built solar cell, and discover why lions – strange as it may seem – roar like babies cry. You can also examine the age-old question of why zebras have stripes and ask whether cats and dogs drink in the same way.

Plus there is a series of seven fabulous images each devoted to a particular animal with some amazing physics powers. Download the PDF now.

Remember that if you want to read Physics World every month you can join the Institute of Physics as an IOPimember quickly and easily online by visiting the Institute’s website. IOPimember includes an annual digital subscription to Physics World.

And while I’m on animals, don’t forget to register – if you haven’t already – for our free online lecture on animal physics, which will be given by David Hu from the “laboratory for biolocomotion” at Georgia Institute of Technology at 3.00 p.m GMT on Thursday 8 November. You can register via this link.

By Matin Durrani

If you’re a member of the Institute of Physics, it’s time to tuck into the November 2012 issue of Physics World, which is a special issue devoted to the facinating field of “animal physics”. It’s packed with a series of fascinating photos, videos and features on a selection of animals all of which have some interesting physics involved in their daily lives.

Read – and watch – how mosquitoes survive collisions with raindrops, find out why a certain species of hornet has a in-built solar cell, and listen to why lions – strange as it may seem – roar like babies. We also examine the age-old question of why zebras have stripes and ask whether cats and dogs drink in the same way.

Plus, we have a series of seven fabulous images each devoted to a particular animal with some amazing physics powers.

Members of the Institute of Physics (IOP) can access the entire new issue online free of charge through the digital edition of the magazine by following this link or by downloading the Physics World app onto an iPhone or iPad or Android device, available from the App Store and Google Play, respectively.

For the record, here’s a rundown of highlights of the issue.

• The industrial academy – IBM’s Zurich Research Centre opened its doors 50 years ago, quickly becoming one of the world’s top research institutions. But does it still live up to its illustrious past? Philip Ball reports

• The benefits of reaching out – Publicizing research is becoming more important as part of a physicist’s job. Pablo Jensen argues that rather than just take time away from research, outreach can actually foster it

• Primate physics – Having recently discussed in this column whether skateboarders and other athletes really “know” physics, here Robert P Crease wonders if primates do as well

• How the zebra got its stripes – Biophysicists are offering new clues to this age-old mystery, as Jon Cartwright reports

• Lapping it up – Cats are slow and elegant, dogs are quick and messy – but is the physics of their drinking all that different? Jon Cartwright reports

• Vespan voltage – Tushna Commissariat explains why Oriental hornets are masters of solar power

• Fly away home – Far from being “bird brained”, members of the avian family have an amazing array of techniques to help them navigate their way across vast oceans and continents. Mark Denny examines the physics of bird navigation

• Riding raindriops – Mosquitoes regularly collide with raindrops up to 50 times their own body mass and yet, remarkably, they live on to bite another victim. Stephen Ornes explains how scientists have figured out how these insects survive such a violent impact

• Walking on water – Why can pond skaters skip so effortlessly across water? Stephen Ornes explains how these creatures’ secrets were revealed using dyed water and a high-speed video camera

• Why lions roar like babies cry – When an angry lion roars, the sounds it emits can terrify anyone within earshot. But, as Ingo Titze explains, the properties of a lion’s roar have some surprising similarities with those of a crying baby

• A strange cat in Dublin’ – Cormac O’Raifeartaigh reviews Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution by John Gribbin

• Soft matter’s charismatic pioneer – Tom McLeish reviews Pierre-Gilles de Gennes: a Life in Science by Laurence Plévert

• Starting from scratch – Mehdi Yazdanpanah describes how he turned his PhD research into a successful small business, despite starting off with just $500 in his bank account

• Consider a spherical cow – In this month’s Lateral Thoughts column, Margaret Harris wonders just what a spherical bovine animal would really be like

If you’re not yet a member, you can join the IOP as an imember for just £15, €20 or $25 a year via this link. Being an iMember gives you a full year’s access to Physics World both online and through the apps.

Transit of Venus 2012 from Lightcurve Films on Vimeo.

By Matin Durrani

You could be forgiven for thinking that we here at Physics World have a slightly obsession with that astronomical phenomenon known as the transit of Venus.

First we published a great feature by Jay Pasachoff that explained the science and history of this rare astronomical event, in which the planet Venus passes across the face of the Sun, as seen from the Earth. Pasachoff’s article appeared just before this year’s transit, which took place on 5 and 6 June, but the transits are so rare that the next one won’t occur until December 2117.

Then Physics World columnist Robert P Crease examined the question of whether the great Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov did – or did not – see the atmosphere of Venus during the 1761 transit. This piece was followed a few months later by Crease’s account of various attempts this summer to carry out historical recreations of Lomonosov’s work. (Crease’s conclusion: yes Lomonosov probably did see Venus’s atmosphere.)

We also ran a photo challenge on Flickr, where we invited you to send us your images of this year’s transit. You can see a selection of the best in this article here.

Anyway, now we’re happy to bring you the above video, which shows this year’s transit as seen from Svalbard (Norway, 78ºN) and Canberra (Australia, 35ºS) using images obtained by members of the European Space Astronomy Centre, just outside Madrid. Nothing beats seeing the transit for real (actually I’m ashamed to admit I was lying in bed when it occured although, to be fair, it was raining in Bristol at the time, but the above video is a pretty good next-best-thing.

And if you want to watch a quick overview of why the transit of Venus occurs, then check out Physics World‘s own video below, featuring Zoe Leinhardt from the University of Bristol.

By Matin Durrani

If you’re a member of the Institute of Physics, it’s time to tuck into the October 2012 issue of Physics World, which sees Michael Riordan continue his story of the search for the Higgs boson, taking us from the closure of the Large Electron–Positron collider at CERN in 2000 to the final, joyous days in July this year when the particle – or something like it – finally appeared at the Geneva lab. Elsewhere, PhD student Ashley Dale gives a riveting account of his two-week stay in the Utah desert, where he was part of a mission seeking to simulate a trip to Mars, which saw him do everything from riding on quad bikes to eating dehydrated food.

Don’t miss either our latest graduate special, where Physics World careers editor Margaret Harris examines the pitfalls and positives of doing a postdoc. Finally, we have a brilliant Lateral Thoughts article this month, in which Stephanie Walton describes her attempts to take a break from her PhD studies – and try her hand at writing a fully fledged crime novel. Physicists are a bright bunch; how hard could penning some fiction possibly be?

Members of the Institute of Physics (IOP) can access the entire new issue free online through the digital version of the magazine by following this link or by downloading the Physics World app onto your iPhone or iPad or Android device, available from the App Store and Google Play, respectively.

For the record, here’s a rundown of the highlights of the issue:

• Astronomy’s golden future – One year on from sharing the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, Brian Schmidt tells Jude Dineley why he thinks the future is bright for physics in Australia

• Courting controversy – A new independent analysis of global temperature records, led by Richard Muller, has found that humans are indeed contributing to climate change, but the result has proved contentious, as Philip Ball reports

• Critical point: How to vote – Ahead of the upcoming US elections, Robert P Crease describes his tactic for determining the qualifications of candidates

• Is the ‘Cox effect’ good for us? – Some claim that recent increases in the number of students studying physics in the UK are due to the TV appearances of physicist Brian Cox. But, as Felicity Mellor warns, the “Cox effect” may not be all good news

• My life on Mars – In December 2011 Ashley Dale spent two weeks in the Utah desert as part of a simulated Mars mission. This is his account of the experience

• Britain and the bomb – On the 60th anniversary of Britain’s first nuclear test, Richard Corfield explores how Operation Hurricane – the British effort to develop the atomic bomb in the 1940s and 1950s compares with states such as Iran that today wish to have such devices

• Cornering the Higgs boson – Michael Riordan continues his look back on the Higgs boson search with the early attempts to hunt it down at the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider

• Hans Bethe’s early life’ – Jeremy Bernstein reviews Nuclear Forces: the Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe by Silvan Schweber

• The science of Prometheus’ – Seymour Mauskopf reviews Roald Hoffmann: On the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry edited by Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg

• The academic pyramid – With the world economy struggling, physics graduates might be tempted to ride out the recession by doing a PhD or postdoctoral research. But as Margaret Harris reports, the academic sector has its own career problems

• My career as a crime novelist – In this month’s Lateral Thoughts column, Stephanie Walton muses on just how hard it could be to write a crime novel

If you’re not yet a member, you can join the IOP as an imember for just £15, €20 or $25 a year via this link. Being an imember gives you a full year’s access to Physics World both online and through the apps.