physicsworld.com Volume 25 No 7 July 2012 PHYSICS AND SPORT The principles behind success HEAT EXCHANGER: Surface-to-surface radiation from the outside shell to the pipe walls transfers heat energy to a molten salt that then transports it to a turbine. Verify and optimize your designs with COMSOL Multiphysics.® Multiphysics tools let you build simulations that accurately replicate the important characteristics of your designs. The key is the ability to include all physical e ects that exist in the real world. Order a free CD containing 700 multiphysics presentations at www.comsol.com/confcd Product Suite COMSOL Multiphysics MECHANICAL MULTIPURPOSE LiveLink™ for Pro/ENGINEER® Heat Transfer Module Optimization Module LiveLink™ for Creo™ Parametric FLUID Structural Mechanics Module Material Library LiveLink™ for Inventor® CFD Module Nonlinear Structural Materials Module Particle Tracing Module LiveLink™ for AutoCAD® Pipe Flow Module Geomechanics Module LiveLink™ for MATLAB® Microfl uidics Module Acoustics Module INTERFACING Subsurface Flow Module CAD Import Module ELECTRICAL File Import for CATIA® V5 CHEMICAL AC/DC Module LiveLink™ for SolidWorks® Chemical Reaction Engineering Module RF Module LiveLink™ for SpaceClaim® Batteries & Fuel Cells Module MEMS Module Electrodeposition Module Plasma Module Corrosion Module Contact us at 01223 451580 © Copyright 2012. COMSOL, COMSOL Multiphysics and LiveLink are either registered trademarks or trademarks of COMSOL AB. AutoCAD and Inventor are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and other countries. LiveLink for AutoCAD and LiveLink for Inventor are not affi liated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by Autodesk, Inc., and/or its affi liates and/or subsidiaries. MATLAB is a registered trademark of The Mathworks, Inc. Pro/ENGINEER and Creo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and in other countries. SolidWorks is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. CATIA is a registered trademark of Dassault Systémes. SpaceClaim is a registered trademark of SpaceClaim Corporation. physicsworld.com Contents: July 2012 Quanta 3 Frontiers 4 Putting the shine on spin quantum memories ● Combing the spectra of exoplanets ● Floating drops and vapour clouds ● Why harlequin mantis shrimp pack a punch ● iStockphoto/Chris BernardiStockphoto/Chris Invisibility-cloak array emerges from the shadows News & Analysis 6 Pressure rises for UK and US to move to open access ● NuSTAR X-ray telescope takes off ● Plastic Logic pulls out of e-reader manufacturing ● Strathclyde welcomes Fraunhofer lab ● SpaceX supplies the International Space Station ● US nuclear boss quits ● SuperB laser plan for Rome lab ● UK closes Hawaiian telescopes ● Japan’s KEKB facility eyes super upgrade ● Square Kilometre Array adopts dual site In theory – skateboarders and physics 19 Comment 15 Physics and sport Forum 17 An impaired cosmic vision Paul Nandra Critical Point 19 Sporting knowledge Robert P Crease iStockphoto/AlanMardi Feedback 20 Geoengineering, energy politics and green economics, plus comments from physicsworld.com on the amazing harlequin mantis shrimp Physics and sport The fastest man on no legs 22 Oscar Pistorius, also known as the “blade runner”, is the poster boy of sports Comic turn – the Great Physics Games 52 prostheses with his two J-shaped leg attachments. James Poskett explains the science behind these and other anatomical additions that are helping disabled athletes to excel Material advantage? 26 On the cover In sports it is hard to say objectively how much a special piece of equipment Physics and sport 22–34 enhances performance or some rule change decreases it – that is, unless you use (clockwise from top left: Shutterstock/ mast3r; iStockphoto/technotr; iStockphoto/ a method like the one described here by Steve Haake technotr; iStockphoto/Bob Thomas; iStockphoto/MichaelSvoboda; iStockphoto/ Balance, angular momentum and sport 31 technotr; Randy Faris/Corbis) Elite gymnasts, divers and long jumpers are not the only people who use simple physics principles to perform amazing balancing acts. Roland Ennos describes how they – and we – do it Reviews 36 Keeping the lights on after 2100 ● The puzzles of quantum field theory ● Web life: Engineering Sport Physics World is published monthly as 12 issues per annual Careers 42 volume by IOP Publishing Ltd, Temple Circus, Temple Way, Technology for life Giulia Thompson ● Once a physicist: Crispin Duenas Bristol BS1 6HG, UK United States Postal Identification Statement Recruitment 45 Physics World (ISSN 0953-8585) is published monthly by IOP Publishing Ltd, Temple Circus, Temple Way, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK. Air freight and mailing in the USA by Publications Expediting, Lateral Thoughts 52 Inc., 200 Meacham Ave, Elmont NY 11003. Periodicals postage at Jamaica NY 11431. The Great Physics Games Kate Oliver US Postmaster: send address changes to Physics World, American Institute of Physics, Suite 1NO1, 2 Huntington Quadrangle, Melville, NY 11747-4502 Physics World July 2012 1 Reassuring when you Up to 20 times quieter can’t hear it running than others in its class Discover more at www.edwardsvacuum.com/nXDS nXDS - forthe heightenedgreat new shape performance of and reliabilityhigh performance with lower dry costvacuum of ownership pumping Vacuum science... product solution. © Edwards Limited 2012. All Rights Reserved Untitled-2 1 22/06/2012 13:37 physicsworld.com Quanta For the record Seen and heard Experiencing the accident convinced when his vehicle was stolen. Curiously, me that the best way to make nuclear NASA though, the driver did not report the theft plants safe is not to rely on them, but of the truck to the local police, with his rather to get rid of them phone later having been found in a fast- Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan food restaurant. The mystery deepens. quoted in the New York Times Kan, who has a degree in applied physics from Alien hunter retires the Tokyo Institute of Technology, says that the “Often the aliens of science fiction prospect of losing Tokyo made him realize that say more about us than they do about nuclear power is too risky. themselves,” declared astronomer Jill Tarter, director of research at the The president just called to say Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, congrats. Caller ID was blocked, so at To infin-knity and beyond California. Tarter was speaking after first I thought it was a telemarketer NASA has revealed its faith in British announcing in late May that she would Entrepreneur and former physicist Elon Musk knitwear after the US space agency be retiring as SETI director, using the writing on Twitter launched a space-faring rubber chicken opportunity to take aim at Hollywood and Musk, who founded the space company SpaceX, in a meteorological balloon to catch the its portrayal of aliens. “We should look at celebrated in late May as the company launched recent solar eclipse. Sue Drage from films such as Men in Black III, Prometheus its first rocket to the International Space Station. Rugby had the honour of knitting a and Battleship as great entertainment jumper for Camilla the rubber chicken and metaphors for our own fears, but we I have a leftover bottle of champagne – the mascot of NASA’s Solar Dynamics should not consider them harbingers of Observatory. The 62-year-old housewife alien visitation,” she noted. Tarter also had from Christmas, but I haven’t yet put was recommended to the space agency by some words of warning for Cambridge it in the fridge. the BBC after she took part in a charity theorist Stephen Hawking: “While Sir [sic] Theorist Peter Higgs speaking at the Festival of “knitathon” in her home town. Yet with Stephen Hawking warned that alien life Ideas in Bristol in May only a couple of photos of Camilla to go might try to conquer or colonize Earth, I Higgs was asked how he would celebrate if on, it wasn’t all plain sailing as it took respectfully disagree.” Maybe she knows conclusive evidence for the Higgs boson is found Drage three attempts to complete the suit. something we don’t about the Queen’s at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, as is widely “The only way I could get it right was to next Birthday Honours. expected to happen later this year. go and buy a rubber chicken,” she told the BBC. You will be relieved to know that A ringing endorsement NASA is a shuttlecock they’re hitting Camilla survived the two-hour flight and, In what seemed like according to its Twitter account, was back an impeccably well- back and forth in time to bag some photos of last month’s IBM Research timed research finding, Former astronaut Neil Armstrong speaking to transit of Venus. researchers at the Royal the Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia Society of Chemistry, the Armstrong, who rarely gives interviews, bemoans Lost and found University of Warwick in the UK and IBM that Congress and the White House are Still on balloons, there were more Research in Zurich released an image constantly at odds over the future direction of questions than answers in late May when in late May of a new molecule they had the space agency. it emerged that a NASA stratospheric synthesized that had an uncanny likeness balloon had gone missing – only to be to the five rings reminiscent of an event A female Brian Cox is the Holy Grail found in a truck at a car wash three happening in London this month (no Radio presenter Ian Peacock quoted in days later. The NASA-funded EBEX prizes for guessing which one). Given the the Guardian experiment is designed to measure the resemblance, the press were all over it: Peacock was commenting on plans to get more intensity and polarization of the cosmic- “Scientists create smallest ever version academics, and in particular women, to present microwave-background radiation when of Olympics logo” screamed a headline TV shows on science, adding that good it launches from Antarctica in October.