![[IOP]](http://images.iop.org/cws/icons/themes/phw/colophon-small.png){kind=icon}
Category Archives: General
Kepler – it’s not all doom and gloom just yet
By Tushna Commissariat
NASA’s Kepler space telescope. (Courtesy: NASA)
To much general dismay, earlier this month NASA officials announced that their Kepler space telescope had gone into a self-imposed “safe mode”, something that the telescope is programmed to do if one of its primary systems is not fully functional. Although the telescope was then rebooted, it shut down again this week and it seems that all is definitely not well with our favourite exoplanet spotter: the mission collaboration announced that the instrument has suffered a critical failure and may never be fully operational again.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
BBC radio celebrates 101 years of cosmic rays
By Hamish Johnston
AMS is a modern version version of Hess’s balloon experiments. (Courtesy: NASA)
The BBC’s Melvyn Bragg has lots to talk about. Over the past few months he has chatted about the Icelandic sagas, water, Gnosticism, and much more on his Radio 4 programme In Our Time. So he can be forgiven for missing a centenary and celebrating cosmic rays 101 years after they were discovered by the Austrian physicist Victor Hess.
An afternoon of quantum theory
By Louise Mayor
Yesterday I had an exciting trip out of the office.
This month’s cover story.
Earlier this week, one of Physics World’s freelance writers, Jon Cartwright, told how me he’d been invited to the Bristol University theory department’s weekly seminar. Felix Flicker, a 2nd-year PhD student who organizes these events, had seen Jon’s article “The life of psi” in this month’s Physics World, which discusses a theorem published in Nature Physics. The theorem is interesting because if its assumptions hold, it rules out one of the four interpretations of quantum mechanics and leaves us with three.
I wanted in on the seminar action!
Last year when I was planning the Physics World special issue on quantum frontiers (which was out in March and is still available as a free PDF download), I had approached Jon to ask whether he’d like to tackle a quantum topic, and he let me know he was interested in covering the paper by Matthew Pusey, Jonathan Barrett and Terry Rudolph. Jon had seen the story reported elsewhere but had found these accounts were light on the details and didn’t get to the bottom of the science. I liked the idea and Jon went ahead. Once the story arrived in my inbox I was hooked! I found it to be one of those stories that covers some tricky concepts but if you let yourself become immersed in the story and think through what’s being explained, is very rewarding.
Do you try to pronounce physics terms as they sound in their language of origin?
By Hamish Johnston
German words in the physicist’s lexicon. (Image by Mathew Ward)
Like many disciplines, physics incorporates words from a number of different languages – and this can often leave a physicist tongue-tied.
How should a native English speaker pronounce Einstein, for example? Should it be the Germanic “Ein-shtein” or the anglicized “Ein-stein”? How should one say De Broglie, Raman or Bernoulli? Should a native English speaker even attempt zitterbewegung, or translate it to “trembling motion”?
I’m sure that some physics terms of English origin are tricky for native speakers of other languages, and their pronunciations are sometimes adjusted accordingly.
Some believe that making an effort to use the original pronunciation shows respect and knowledge of the origin of a word. Others are happy to use the pronunciation they are most comfortable with.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
Google and NASA acquire a D-Wave quantum computer
D-Wave’s Geordie Rose with one of the firm’s quantum computers. (Courtesy: D-Wave)
By Hamish Johnston
Canada’s D-Wave Systems is installing one of its quantum computers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. The new 512-qubit system – dubbed D-Wave Two – will be used by NASA, Google and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) to investigate how quantum computers could be used to solve a range of different problems. According to Vancouver-based D-Wave, the computer will be available for use in the third quarter of this year.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
Is Canada giving up on science?
By Hamish Johnston
The good old days: Nobel laureate Bert Brockhouse won his prize for work done at this federally funded research reactor. (Courtesy: CNA)
I am Canadian by birth and lived in that country for more than 30 years until the mid-1990s. For the past decade I have noticed a disturbing trend in the Canadian government of turning away from the outside world and becoming increasingly parochial in its outlook on important issues. I find this sad because I think the country is a thoroughly decent place that, despite its shortcomings, could provide inspiration for those living under less salubrious social and political systems.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
The Fantastic Mr Feynman
By Hamish Johnston
Fantastic Feynman at Fermilab. (Courtesy: Fermilab)
If you can’t get enough of Richard Feynman, the BBC has released the second part of its television tribute to the late Nobel laureate.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
Research galore in Singapore
By James Dacey
The Helix Bridge in Singapore. (Courtesy: iStockphoto/TommL)
Despite its modest size, the city-state of Singapore is clearly an ambitious nation, boasting a leading financial centre and one of the world’s busiest ports. During a recent visit to Boston I met a man called Lim Tze Min who works for a government agency called Contact Singapore, which exists to try and attract skilled people to live and work in Singapore. I wanted to know why a physicist might consider relocating to the country. Listen to our conversation here.
Tze Min talks about research facilities including the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT), the founding director of which is the Polish-born physicist Artur Ekert, who is also affiliated with the University of Oxford in the UK. According to Tze Min, one of the major bonuses of being a researcher in Singapore is the small amount of bureaucracy invovled, which allows scientists to get on with just doing the science. Give it a listen and decide for yourself whether it sounds like a place where you could imagine yourself working.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
Hawking’s academic boycott divides opinion
By James Dacey
Do you agree with the principle of academic boycotts?
Yes
No
Have your say by taking part in this week’s Facebook poll. As always, please feel free to explain your answer by posting a comment on Facebook or below this article.
This question has arisen after it was revealed yesterday that Stephen Hawking will be boycotting a prominent conference in Jerusalem in protest against the policies of the Israeli government. The British cosmologist and science communicator had been set to talk at the Israeli Presidential Conference: Facing Tomorrow, which will take place in June and which will feature a string of high-profile speakers, including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. But the University of Cambridge has confirmed that Hawking, who is director of research at its Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, has pulled out of the conference for political reasons. Physics World has spoken to a university spokesperson who confirmed that Hawking has sent a letter to the conference organizers to explain his decision not to take part. The UK newspaper the Guardian has today published what it says is the full text of this letter, dated 3 May.
“I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the West Bank. However, I have received a number of e-mails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
Stephen Hawking boycotts high-profile Israeli conference
By James Dacey
Stephen Hawking has decided to pull out of the fifth Israeli Presidential Conference: Facing Tomorrow 2013, which is taking place in June. The world-famous British cosmologist and science communicator was due to deliver a keynote speech at the conference in Jerusalem, which boasts other presenters including Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev. But it appears that Hawking has made a late U-turn. That is according to a statement published by the British Committee for Universities for Palestine – an organization of UK-based academics, set up in response to the Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel.
We understand that Professor Stephen Hawking has declined his invitation to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference Facing Tomorrow 2013, due to take place in Jerusalem on 18–20 June. This is his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
