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Posts by: Matin Durrani
The beauty of gravitational waves
Science meets art – this painting by Penelope Cowley will be unveiled at Cardiff University’s school of physics and astronomy on 25 November.
By Matin Durrani
A new painting by Welsh artist Penelope Cowley is the latest attempt to bring art and science together. Set to be unveiled on Friday 25 November at Cardiff University’s school of physics and astronomy, the 1.2 × 1.5 m picture was inspired by the recent detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO collaboration.
According to the university, the oil painting “combines a visualization of data taken from the equipment used to detect the first gravitational waves…with an imagination of some of the celestial bodies that are responsible for creating these waves, such as binary black holes and neutron stars”.
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American angst
Danger ahead – Donald Trump’s election as US president will not be business as usual for science policy. (Courtesy: iStock/uschools)
By Matin Durrani
Like many people, I’m fearful of the imminent Donald Trump presidency, given the many sexist, racist and otherwise unpleasant remarks he made during the US election campaign. However, his slogan – “Make America great again” – proved powerfully effective for many voters. Who, after all, could disagree with renewed domestic glory? Sadly, Trump’s plans for achieving that goal – what little we know of them – are based on such ill-informed and ignorant views that he could damage America’s long-standing leadership in many areas, including science.
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Newton’s apple pips to form UK orchard
Extending outreach: today is a worldwide celebration of science centres and museums.
By Matin Durrani
Today is not only World Science Day for Peace and Development (come on, don’t tell me you didn’t know) but also the world’s first ever International Science Center and Science Museum Day, which goes by the clunky acronym ISCSMD.
The grandiosely titled day seeks to “create new ways for our institutions to proactively address global sustainability while reaching increasingly diverse audiences”.
Building on UNESCO’s theme of “science for peace and development”, outcomes from the day’s events and discussions will be presented at the Science Centre World Summit 2017 in Tokyo next November.
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Physics of food – the November 2016 issue of Physics World is now out
By Matin Durrani
If you love crisps – and frankly who doesn’t? – you’ll relish the cover feature of the latest issue of Physics World, in which features editor Louise Mayor tours the world’s biggest crisp factory at Leicester in the UK to see how physics is improving production of this yummy salty snack. The issue is now live in the Physics World app for mobile and desktop and will also be made available on physicsworld.com later this month.
Elsewhere in this special issue on physics and food, you can find out how electric fields could help to cut the fact from chocolate and discover why sound holds the key to our appreciation of what we eat.
You can also see how physicists – being masters of data-gathering, modelling and simulation – are ideally placed to develop products that are healthier, more nutritious and make more of our resources. Find out too how soft-matter physicists are crafting “functional” foods that promote feelings of fullness and satisfaction.
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A toe-tally terrific trio
Toe to toe: the three ChattyFeet physicist designs.
By Matin Durrani
It’s not even Halloween yet and Physics World HQ has already received its first gift ideas for the Christmas season. Now most of us might roll our eyes if we were given a pair of socks for Christmas, but the footwear sent to us by UK firm ChattyFeet – slogan “Let the socks do the talkin'” – are sure to bring a smile to any physicist’s face.
The company has three different physics-related sock designs on offer, each depicting a cartoon image of a famous physicist and branded with a toe-totally amusing name. First up is a fetching blue number dubbed “Stephen Toeking” with the washing instruction: “Choose a slow spinning cycle to avoid a black hole.”
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The October 2016 issue of Physics World is now out
By Matin Durrani
The cover story in the October 2016 issue of Physics World magazine – now live in the Physics World app for mobile and desktop – reveals the inside story of how military labs are opening up their research facilities to the world. You can read the article here too.
The October issue also looks at how breakthroughs in physics really occur – is it flashes of insight or just long, hard graft? – and examines why we could finally find discrepancies in the “equivalence principle” that inertial and gravitational mass are the same.
Don’t miss either the ding-dong over China’s plans to build a new collider, our interview with Nithaya Chetty on transforming South African astronomy, or Robert P Crease’s Critical Point column on the danger of “unknown unknowns”.
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A look back at peer-review week and particle physicists say hello to Hello Kitty
By Matin Durrani
Today marks the end of Peer Review Week – a “global event celebrating the essential role that peer review plays in maintaining scientific quality”. The event brought together “individuals, institutions and organizations committed to sharing the central message that good peer review, whatever shape or form it might take, is critical to scholarly communications”.
It’s probably fair to say that Peer Review Week – now in its second year – didn’t quite have the media profile of, say, London Fashion Week, but then you have to start somewhere. And celebrating peer review seems a worthy and worthwhile thing to do. I bet even Rio de Janeiro’s Restaurant Week started out small. (more…)
Conference thoughts
All-male line-up: Matin Durrani speaking at a round-table on the future of physics at the 50th-anniversary meeting of the Brazil Physics Society.
By Matin Durrani in Natal, Brazil
I rounded off my final full day at the 50th-anniversary meeting of the Brazil Physics Society (SBF) by taking part in a round-table on the development of physics over the next two decades organized by former SBF president Ricardo Galvão,
Alongside me (right to left in the photo above) were Christophe Rossel from IBM’s Zurich lab, who’s current president of the European Physical Society, Roger Falcone from the University of California, Berkeley who’s vice-president of the American Physical Society and will take over as head honcho in 2018, as well as Carlos Pinto de Melo from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, who was SBF president from 2009 to 2011. A late entry to the panel was Valentin Areviev from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia.
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A paradise for physics in Brazil
Leading light: Alvaro Ferraz, director of the International Institute of Physics in Natal.
By Matin Durrani in Natal, Brazil
I took a break yesterday afternoon from the 50th anniversary meeting of the Brazil Physics Society here in Natal in the north-east of the country to visit the International Institute of Physics (IIP). Located on the campus of the Universidad Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, the IIP was founded in 2010 to carry out cutting-edge research in theoretical physics and help push forward Brazilian science on the international stage. If you’re a theorist, it’s hard to imagine a more pleasant environment for doing physics.
Previously housed in a small, cramped building (albeit with a swimming pool), the IIP moved into a shiny, new three-storey building in March this year. One striking architectural feature is the institute’s central atrium, which is fully open to the outside world. Natal has such a great climate – it’s 25–30 °C all year round and almost always sunny – that there’s no need for stuffy walls and doors. The design also lets the regular, strong breezes that blow into Natal from the Atlantic to add a delightful, cooling touch.
Antimatter comes to Brazil
Great minds – some of the delegates at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Brazil Physics Society.
By Matin Durrani in Natal, Brazil
There can’t be many physics experiments to have been visited by members of not one, but two different rock bands. But then there’s something fundamentally captivating about the work of the ALPHA collaboration at the CERN particle-physics lab near Geneva, which is studying the properties of antimatter.
As Jeffrey Hangst from Aarhus University in Denmark revealed in his plenary talk at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Brazilian Physics Society (SBF) yesterday, the ALPHA collaboration has not only played host to a visit from legendary 1970s rockers David Crosby and Graham Nash, but in July also welcomed members of British alternative “space rock” outfit Muse while they were on a visit to CERN.
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