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Tag archives: Canada
Canada’s birthday physics, Liberty’s true colours, Trump’s Science cover
Famous Canadian: nuclear pioneer Harriett Brooks. (Courtesy: PI)
By Hamish Johnston
Tomorrow (1 July) is the 150th birthday of Canada. Or more precisely the anniversary of the day when three British colonies (one of which was already called Canada) joined together and started the long and peaceful journey to becoming fully independent of the UK in 1982. How very Canadian, and I should know because I am one of the 36 million Canadians who will be celebrating tomorrow.
Synonymous with physics in Canada over the past decade or so is the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. Folks there have put together a selection of “13 physics innovations you may not know are Canadian”. I wasn’t aware of some of the innovations, including the work of Harriett Brooks (above). But I am pleased to say that I have met both of the physics Nobel laureates mentioned in the article – Art McDonald and Bert Brockhouse.
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Monuments to peer review and Canada, Marie Curie as superhero, a 3D book about Einstein
Cubist sculpture: a monument to peer review. (Courtesy: Igor Chirikov)
By Michael Banks and Hamish Johnston
You may remember a campaign to create a monument dedicated to those hard-working people who peer-review research papers. Last year, sociologist Igor Chirikov, from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, raised $2521 on Kickstarter to turn an “ugly” block of concrete outside the university’s Institute of Education into a monument that reads “accept”, “minor changes”, “major changes”, “revise and resubmit” and “reject” on its five visible sides. Well, after months of toil that monument has now been unveiled by Chirikov in a ceremony at the institution that was attended by over 100 supporters. “Most understand the sarcastic nature of the monument and love it,” says Chirikov. “Many also wonder what’s on the bottom side of the monument.” Chirikov is thinking of hanging a small mirror on a nearby tree so that everyone can see “Accept” on the top of the cube.
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What it’s like collaborating with physicists in China
By Matin Durrani
Barry Sanders – director of the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology at the University of Calgary, Canada – last week visited the headquarters of IOP Publishing, which publishes Physics World.
Sanders has just taken over from Eberhard Bodenschatz as editor-in-chief of New Journal of Physics, and it’s a coup to have him in the role, not least because he’s an incredibly busy physicist, making – by his reckoning – at least 150 international flights a year.
Lament for ‘the reactor that can do everything’
Inside the NRU. (Courtesy: Atomic Energy of Canada)
By Hamish Johnston at the CAP Congress in Edmonton
In 1957 Atomic Energy of Canada built “a reactor that can do everything” at Chalk River, Ontario. Dubbed the National Reactor Universal – or NRU – that facility will shut down for good in 2018 and Canada’s neutron-science community is now pondering its future.
In the short term, physicists will have to travel abroad to use neutron sources, such as those at Oak Ridge in the US and Grenoble in France. The challenge during this 10–15 year period will be to keep the research community together and make sure that vital skills and expertise built up over decades at the NRU will be retained. In the longer term, there are calls for Canada to build a new neutron facility, but it is by no means clear whether that will happen.
‘Physics across Canada’ tour kicks off in Edmonton
By Hamish Johnston
Greetings from Edmonton on the western edge of the Canadian prairies, where I am starting my “Physics across Canada” tour. The nation’s physicists are gathering here for the annual Canadian Association of Physicists Congress at the University of Alberta.
The congress opens today with a session that promises to be out of this world. Exoplanet expert Sara Seager of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is talking about the search for habitable worlds beyond our blue planet. I am really keen to learn more about the latest techniques for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets and I plan to record an interview about that very subject later this week.
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