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Tag archives: Physics World at 25
Physics World at 25: Puzzle 2
By Louise Mayor
Welcome to the second instalment of the Physics World at 25 Puzzle. The first puzzle was released last week and your second challenge lies below. #PW25puzzle
Is Schrödinger’s cat alive or dead?
1. Schrödinger’s cat is alive.
2. Schrödinger’s cat is dead.
3. Exactly one of statements 6 and 9 is true.
4. Exactly one of statements 2 and 6 is false.
5. Statements 4, 5 and 10 are all false.
6. Exactly one of statements 1 and 10 is false.
7. Exactly 5 statements are true.
8. Exactly one of statements 3 and 10 is false.
9. Exactly one of statements 6 and 10 is true.
10. Exactly one of statements 1 and 2 is false.
11. Statements 1, 8 and 11 are all false.
Enter your answer as a list, in numerical order, of the number(s) of the statements that are definitely true, as a single string with no spaces, such as, for example, 25811.
Stings, furloughs and women in physics
The National Institute of Standards and Technology website is on furlough this week.
By Hamish Johnston
This week the magazine and journal Science published an article called “Who’s afraid of peer review?“. It describes a remarkable “sting” operation by the journalist John Bohannon, who submitted a spoof scientific paper to 300 or so open-access scientific journals. The paper claimed to offer evidence for the anti-cancer properties of a naturally occurring compound. It contained several fundamental errors that should have been caught by the peer-review process, not to mention made-up authors working at fictitious institutes. Instead of being rejected by all the journals, more than half of the submissions (157 in total) were accepted for publication.
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Physics World at 25: Puzzle 1
By Louise Mayor
This month is the 25th anniversary of Physics World – the member magazine of the Institute of Physics – and in addition to a special celebratory issue, we’ve decided to set you a challenge.
In fact, we have teamed up with GCHQ – one of the UK’s three Intelligence Agencies and home to some of the country’s hottest code-breaking talent – to create with us a set of five physics-themed puzzles. The puzzles have been devised by three GCHQ members of staff, who today we still know only as Colin, Nick and Pete. (Thank you, guys!)
Below is Puzzle 1, the first of the five. The rest will be released on successive Tuesdays throughout October on this blog. The first is the easiest – they only get harder from here on in!
Celebrating 25 years of Physics World
By Matin Durrani
Physics World October 2013.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of Physics World – the member magazine of the Institute of Physics (IOP) – which launched in October 1988. And to celebrate that fact, we’ve created a fantastic special issue of Physics World in which we look back at some of the highlights in physics of the last 25 years and also forward to where the subject is going next.
All members of the IOP can access the entire new issue right now via the digital version of the magazine or by downloading the free Physics World app onto your iPhone or iPad or Android device, available from the App Store and Google Play, respectively. The issue includes a stack of bonus audio and video content, including three short films we’ve specially made about some of the top spin-offs from physics.
We’ve split the bulk of the issue into five sections, each with five items (five times five being 25, of course):
• Find out our choice of the top five discoveries in fundamental physics over the last 25 years.
• See what five leading researchers have to say about Physics World‘s choice of the five biggest unanswered questions in physics right now.
• Enjoy our pick of the five top images from the last 25 years that have let us “see” a physical phenomenon or effect.
• Learn more about the five people who are changing the way physics is done.
• Gaze into the future as we disclose the five most promising spin-offs from physics.
We also have a set of fiendish physics-themed puzzles devised for you by staff at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – the first is revealed in the special issue and on our blog, with the rest to be unveiled on physicsworld.com throughout October.
Hangout with Physics World
By James Dacey
This year Physics World is celebrating its 25th birthday. The first issue of the magazine was published in October 1988, so for October this year we are producing a special anniversary issue. It will celebrate the big physics stories from the first quarter of a century of our existence, but it will also have a strong focus on the exciting new physics that await us in the near future. To discuss our plans, I joined editor of Physics World Matin Durrani in this Google Hangout, recorded yesterday.
It was the first time we had attempted one of these fancy new hangouts; this was something of a pilot run. But with the likes of Barack Obama, CERN and the BBC all attempting this new, accessible way of video broadcasting, I reckon we’re in good company.
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