DOCSLIB.ORG

Nothing Ventured

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Nothing Ventured BOOKS & ARTS Nothing ventured THE VOID BY FRANK CLOSE On our Oxford University Press: 2007. 166 pp. £9.99 bookshelf From time to time trends emerge in popular tour of the frontiers of modern physics physics books — short books, illustrated and cosmology. Moreover, counter to the books, personal books, books criticizing recent trends, Close seeks to cover all this Guide to Weather string theory, books with the word ground — plus the Lamb shift, the Casimir Forecasting ‘universe’ in the title, and so on. However, force and a few other nooks and crannies that by Storm Dunlop the overwhelming trend in recent years rarely feature in popular physics books — in Philip’s: 2008. 176 pp. has been for popular physics books to a mere 166 pages. Although the breadth of £9.99. become longer and longer, bolstering topics covered is impressive, the book gives their bulk with copious notes, exhaustive the impression of being written and published Think you can do better references, a detailed index and, for many US in a hurry. than the weatherman? authors, an acknowledgement to the super- Non-physicists will certainly struggle with This practical guide agent John Brockman. some of the explanations in the book, whereas includes weather However, a common feature of almost physicists might wonder why CERN is the charts, satellite images all popular physics books, long or short, is only particle physics lab to be mentioned, or and maps, as well as that they have to rehash the basics (atoms, why Philip Anderson is (rightly) mentioned explanations on how to quantum mechanics, relativity, for example) in connection with the Higgs mechanism, but interpret them. and the not-so-basics (such as the cosmic lots of other theorists who made important microwave background or the Standard contributions — notably Robert Brout and Model of particle physics) before they reach François Englert, who shared the 2004 their own raison d’être. Indeed, in many Wolf prize with Peter Higgs — are not. (My ways these topics constitute a standard own theory is that Close has noticed that model of popular physics writing, and the Anderson, who reviews a lot of physics challenge for all authors is to go beyond this books, routinely criticizes authors who model and tell the reader something new overlook the role played by condensed- and interesting. matter physicists in the history of the The best books achieve this by focusing Higgs mechanism.) And physicists and on a specific scientific problem and telling non-physicists alike will wonder why the a story — reliving the twists and turns, the author bothers to discuss Stephen Hawking personalities, the controversies, the blind and James Hartle’s notoriously difficult- The Mystery of the alleys and the breakthroughs on the way to to-understand ‘imaginary time’ in such a Missing Antimatter where we are now, which is rarely the end desultory manner in the last chapter. by Helen R. Quinn and of the story. The Extravagant Universe by However, the main problem with The Void Yossi Nir Robert Kirshner, who led one of the teams is that it offers little or nothing that has Princeton Univ. Press: that discovered dark energy, is a good recent not been offered in more detail and with 2008. 292 pp. $29.95. example. Professional writers and journalists greater clarity in many other books. This cannot, as a rule, bring the same level of is a pity because Close has an excellent Immediately after the authority and insight to their books, but they track record of bringing physics to the Big Bang, there were can compensate with other tools and skills, public, and because it is easy to imagine the equal amounts of matter such as extensive background research and vacuum being used as a theme to go beyond and antimatter. But a interviews: Strange Beauty, George Johnson’s the standard model of popular physics millionth of a second superb biography of Murray Gell-Mann, is the writing in new and interesting ways, but later, a teeny surplus best example of this approach. only if the material is given more time and of matter — about one The Void by Frank Close — eminent more space. part per 10 billion — led particle theorist, award-winning science to our Universe today, writer and former head of communication Peter Rodgers with antimatter mostly and public education activities at CERN — Peter Rodgers is the chief editor of confined to particle takes the vacuum as its theme on a whirlwind Nature Nanotechnology accelerators. Why? nature physics | VOL 4 | FEBRUARY 2008 | www.nature.com/naturephysics 85 © 2008 Nature Publishing Group .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Annual Report to Industry Canada Covering The
    Annual Report to Industry Canada Covering the Objectives, Activities and Finances for the period August 1, 2008 to July 31, 2009 and Statement of Objectives for Next Year and the Future Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics 31 Caroline Street North Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5 Table of Contents Pages Period A. August 1, 2008 to July 31, 2009 Objectives, Activities and Finances 2-52 Statement of Objectives, Introduction Objectives 1-12 with Related Activities and Achievements Financial Statements, Expenditures, Criteria and Investment Strategy Period B. August 1, 2009 and Beyond Statement of Objectives for Next Year and Future 53-54 1 Statement of Objectives Introduction In 2008-9, the Institute achieved many important objectives of its mandate, which is to advance pure research in specific areas of theoretical physics, and to provide high quality outreach programs that educate and inspire the Canadian public, particularly young people, about the importance of basic research, discovery and innovation. Full details are provided in the body of the report below, but it is worth highlighting several major milestones. These include: In October 2008, Prof. Neil Turok officially became Director of Perimeter Institute. Dr. Turok brings outstanding credentials both as a scientist and as a visionary leader, with the ability and ambition to position PI among the best theoretical physics research institutes in the world. Throughout the last year, Perimeter Institute‘s growing reputation and targeted recruitment activities led to an increased number of scientific visitors, and rapid growth of its research community. Chart 1. Growth of PI scientific staff and associated researchers since inception, 2001-2009.
    [Show full text]
  • 2005 Annual Report American Physical Society
    1 2005 Annual Report American Physical Society APS 20052 APS OFFICERS 2006 APS OFFICERS PRESIDENT: PRESIDENT: Marvin L. Cohen John J. Hopfield University of California, Berkeley Princeton University PRESIDENT ELECT: PRESIDENT ELECT: John N. Bahcall Leo P. Kadanoff Institue for Advanced Study, Princeton University of Chicago VICE PRESIDENT: VICE PRESIDENT: John J. Hopfield Arthur Bienenstock Princeton University Stanford University PAST PRESIDENT: PAST PRESIDENT: Helen R. Quinn Marvin L. Cohen Stanford University, (SLAC) University of California, Berkeley EXECUTIVE OFFICER: EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Judy R. Franz Judy R. Franz University of Alabama, Huntsville University of Alabama, Huntsville TREASURER: TREASURER: Thomas McIlrath Thomas McIlrath University of Maryland (Emeritus) University of Maryland (Emeritus) EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Martin Blume Martin Blume Brookhaven National Laboratory (Emeritus) Brookhaven National Laboratory (Emeritus) PHOTO CREDITS: Cover (l-r): 1Diffraction patterns of a GaN quantum dot particle—UCLA; Spring-8/Riken, Japan; Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab, SLAC & UC Davis, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 085503 (2005) 2TESLA 9-cell 1.3 GHz SRF cavities from ACCEL Corp. in Germany for ILC. (Courtesy Fermilab Visual Media Service 3G0 detector studying strange quarks in the proton—Jefferson Lab 4Sections of a resistive magnet (Florida-Bitter magnet) from NHMFL at Talahassee LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT APS IN 2005 3 2005 was a very special year for the physics community and the American Physical Society. Declared the World Year of Physics by the United Nations, the year provided a unique opportunity for the international physics community to reach out to the general public while celebrating the centennial of Einstein’s “miraculous year.” The year started with an international Launching Conference in Paris, France that brought together more than 500 students from around the world to interact with leading physicists.
    [Show full text]
  • AAS NEWSLETTER a Publication for the Members of the American Astronomical Society October 2004 Issue 122 PRESIDENT’S COLUMN Robert Kirshner, [email protected]
    AAS NEWSLETTER A Publication for the members of the American Astronomical Society October 2004 Issue 122 PRESIDENT’S COLUMN Robert Kirshner, [email protected] After a year of having my rough edges sanded off as President-elect, I am now actually in the Oval Inside Office (it is really an ellipse with Bob Milkey as one focus). The physical proof of this is a large box of stationery with my return address that says (I am not making this up) “Office of the President.” If you receive a letter from me, you can check it out for yourself. But check the signature, since the 4 Washington AAS office has a JPG of my personal calligraphy. For Official Use Only. AAS Elections Final Slate As incoming President, I got to sit at the left hand of NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe during lunch before his presentation at the Denver meeting. He had a little trouble with the vacuum seal on the coffee 6 pot, and there were no dexterous robots at the table, so I used my human ingenuity to hold the top Committee News firmly while rotating the coffee pot clockwise with the handle. Exactly like opening a bottle of champagne: hold the cork and rotate the bottle. But not as much fun. 7 International Travel O’Keefe’s speech was quite passionate and made it very clear that he does not want to send astronauts Grant Application to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. The preliminary report from the NRC Committee headed by Louis Lanzerotti, and including astronomers Sandy Faber, Riccardo Giacconni, and Joe Taylor gives another perspective, and is well worth reading (http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11051.html).
    [Show full text]
  • A New Universe to Discover: a Guide to Careers in Astronomy
    A New Universe to Discover A Guide to Careers in Astronomy Published by The American Astronomical Society What are Astronomy and Astrophysics? Ever since Galileo first turned his new-fangled one-inch “spyglass” on the moon in 1609, the popular image of the astronomer has been someone who peers through a telescope at the night sky. But astronomers virtually never put eye to lens these days. The main source of astronomical data is still photons (particles of light) from space, but the tools used to gather and analyze them are now so sophisticated that it’s no longer necessary (or even possible, in most cases) for a human eye to look through them. But for all the high-tech gadgetry, the 21st-Century astronomer is still trying to answer the same fundamental questions that puzzled Galileo: How does the universe work, and where did it come from? Webster’s dictionary defines “astronomy” as “the science that deals with the material universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere.” This definition is broad enough to include great theoretical physicists like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking as well as astronomers like Copernicus, Johanes Kepler, Fred Hoyle, Edwin Hubble, Carl Sagan, Vera Rubin, and Margaret Burbidge. In fact, the words “astronomy” and “astrophysics” are pretty much interchangeable these days. Whatever you call them, astronomers seek the answers to many fascinating and fundamental questions. Among them: *Is there life beyond earth? *How did the sun and the planets form? *How old are the stars? *What exactly are dark matter and dark energy? *How did the Universe begin, and how will it end? Astronomy is a physical (non-biological) science, like physics and chemistry.
    [Show full text]
  • Works of Love
    reader.ad section 9/21/05 12:38 PM Page 2 AMAZING LIGHT: Visions for Discovery AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM IN HONOR OF THE 90TH BIRTHDAY YEAR OF CHARLES TOWNES October 6-8, 2005 — University of California, Berkeley Amazing Light Symposium and Gala Celebration c/o Metanexus Institute 3624 Market Street, Suite 301, Philadelphia, PA 19104 215.789.2200, [email protected] www.foundationalquestions.net/townes Saturday, October 8, 2005 We explore. What path to explore is important, as well as what we notice along the path. And there are always unturned stones along even well-trod paths. Discovery awaits those who spot and take the trouble to turn the stones. -- Charles H. Townes Table of Contents Table of Contents.............................................................................................................. 3 Welcome Letter................................................................................................................. 5 Conference Supporters and Organizers ............................................................................ 7 Sponsors.......................................................................................................................... 13 Program Agenda ............................................................................................................. 29 Amazing Light Young Scholars Competition................................................................. 37 Amazing Light Laser Challenge Website Competition.................................................. 41 Foundational
    [Show full text]
  • Advanced Information on the Nobel Prize in Physics, 5 October 2004
    Advanced information on the Nobel Prize in Physics, 5 October 2004 Information Department, P.O. Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 673 95 00, Fax: +46 8 15 56 70, E-mail: [email protected], Website: www.kva.se Asymptotic Freedom and Quantum ChromoDynamics: the Key to the Understanding of the Strong Nuclear Forces The Basic Forces in Nature We know of two fundamental forces on the macroscopic scale that we experience in daily life: the gravitational force that binds our solar system together and keeps us on earth, and the electromagnetic force between electrically charged objects. Both are mediated over a distance and the force is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between the objects. Isaac Newton described the gravitational force in his Principia in 1687, and in 1915 Albert Einstein (Nobel Prize, 1921 for the photoelectric effect) presented his General Theory of Relativity for the gravitational force, which generalized Newton’s theory. Einstein’s theory is perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of science and the most celebrated one. The laws for the electromagnetic force were formulated by James Clark Maxwell in 1873, also a great leap forward in human endeavour. With the advent of quantum mechanics in the first decades of the 20th century it was realized that the electromagnetic field, including light, is quantized and can be seen as a stream of particles, photons. In this picture, the electromagnetic force can be thought of as a bombardment of photons, as when one object is thrown to another to transmit a force.
    [Show full text]
  • Belgian Nobel Laureate Englert Lauds Late Colleague Brout 8 October 2013
    Belgian Nobel laureate Englert lauds late colleague Brout 8 October 2013 Belgian scientist Francois Englert said his Last year, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN happiness Tuesday at winning the Nobel Prize for finally provided the experimental proof to back up Physics was tempered with regret that life-long the theory and Englert paid tribute to all the colleague Robert Brout could not enjoy the plaudits scientists, including Higgs, who had helped solve too. the great puzzle of modern physics. "Of course I am happy to have won the prize, that Englert said he and his colleagues all understood goes without saying, but there is regret too that my the importance of their work but the idea that they colleague and friend, Robert Brout, is not there to one day would win the Nobel prize had never been share it," Englert told a press conference at the an issue. Free University of Brussels (ULB). Asked what comes next, he replied: "There are Robert Brout died in 2011, having begun the huge numbers of problems still be solved. This just search for the elusive Higgs Boson—the "God marks a step in our understanding of the world." particle"—with Englert in the 1960s at the ULB. © 2013 AFP "It was a very long collaboration, it was a friendship. I was with Robert until his death," Englert said. Now 80 but still working, the bespectacled and bearded professor responded in good humour to questions, joking about the delay in the announcement. With no news for an hour, Englert said he had thought it was not to be but "we decided just the same to have a party..
    [Show full text]
  • Highlights of Hubble Scientists Tell Nature Video About Their Favourite Moment with the Space Telescope
    NATURE | VIDEO Highlights of Hubble Scientists tell Nature Video about their favourite moment with the space telescope. Noah Baker & Alexandra Witze 15 April 2015 As the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch approaches, Nature Video looks back at some of the craft's greatest discoveries through the eyes of those who were involved with them. Hubble’s images have made careers, paved the way for a Nobel prize and inspired a generation of astronomers. In this series, Nature Video asked five scientists to tell us about their favourite Hubble moment. Check back at this page to see the videos in the week leading up to Hubble’s 25th anniversary on 24 April. Nature Video Episode 5: Robert Kirshner, astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was part of the supernova team that used Hubble to discover the accelerating expansion of the universe, for which the team leaders received the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. Kirshner also used Hubble to probe the ashes of supernovae, most famously one that appeared in the southern sky in 1987. Episode 4: Mike Massimino, former NASA astronaut. Massimino has had a closer relationship with Hubble than almost anyone else on Earth — or off it. As an active astronaut, he helped to service the telescope in orbit on two space-shuttle missions, in 2002 and 2009. 1 Episode 3: Antonella Nota, at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, and the European Space Agency, uprooted her life and moved from Italy to Maryland to join the Hubble project, just weeks before the 1986 Challenger explosion delayed the launch for three years.
    [Show full text]
  • A Physicist Goes in Search of Our Origins
    Books & arts researchers and practitioners, the book charts rooted. Why? Because using data to inform we need to address the source of the bias. a slow, steady, complex progress, with many automated decisions often ignores the con- This will be done not through technological lows and some incredible highs. texts, emotions and relationships that are core fixes, but by education and social change. At We meet people such as Rich Caruana, now to human choices. the same time, research is needed to address senior principal researcher at Microsoft in Data are not raw materials. They are always the field’s perverse dependence on correla- Redmond, Washington, who was asked as a about the past, and they reflect the beliefs, tions in data. Current AI identifies patterns, graduate student to glance at something that practices and biases of those who create and not meaning. led to his life’s work — optimizing data cluster- collect them. Yet current application of auto- Meticulously researched and superbly writ- ing and compression to make models that are mated decision-making is informed more by ten, these books ultimately hold up a mirror. both intelligible and accurate. And we walk efficiency and economic benefits than by its They show that the responsible — ethical, legal along the beach with Marc Bellemare, who pio- effects on people. and beneficial — development and use of AI is neered reinforcement learning while working Worse, most approaches to AI empower not about technology. It is about us: how we with games for the Atari console and is now at those who have the data and the computa- want our world to be; how we prioritize human Google Research in Montreal, Canada.
    [Show full text]
  • Nature Physics Advance Online Publication, 8 October 2013 Doi:10.1038/Nphys2800 Research Highlight Nobel Prize 2013: Englert
    Nature Physics advance online publication, 8 October 2013 doi:10.1038/nphys2800 Research Highlight Nobel Prize 2013: Englert and Higgs Alison Wright The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 has been awarded to François Englert and Peter Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider". It is probably the most widely anticipated Nobel award ever made — even as the announcement on 8 October was delayed by an hour, it still seemed certain that the prize would be given for what is generally known as the Higgs mechanism, cemented by the discovery of a Higgs boson at CERN last year. The only uncertainty lay in quite who would claim a slice of the prize. In 1964, François Englert and his colleague Robert Brout published a paper1 in Physical Review Letters in which they outlined a possible mechanism for the generation of particle masses. A few weeks later — in a world without e-mail or preprint servers — Peter Higgs published a similar, independent work2, and also mentioned the existence of a particle associated with the postulated field that would provoke the mass-generating mechanism. (These have since been known as the Higgs boson, the Higgs field and the Higgs mechanism.) And just a few weeks later still, Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hagen and Tom Kibble followed up with their own, independent, version3 of the same mechanism.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Trail of Dark Energy
    I n t e r n at I o n a l Jo u r n a l o f HI g H -en e r g y PH y s I c s CERN COURIERV o l u m e 49 nu m b e r 2 m a r c H 2009 On the trail of dark energy LHCCOVERLINE NEWS HEAD LASERSCOVERLINE HEAD PERSONALITYCOVERLINE HEAD ChamonixCoverline normal meeting High-intensityCoverline normal pulses AnCoverline interview normal with firmscoverline up thenormal schedule px p5 offercoverline exciting normal potential px p21 Georgescoverline Charpak normal px p24 CCMar09Cover.indd 1 10/2/09 09:45:18 Abstract Submission 25-31 October 2009 Deadline: 11 May 2009 General Chair: Nuclear Science Symposium Richard Lanza MIT, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering Medical Imaging Conference 77 Massachusetts Ave, Building NW13-221 Radiation Detectors and Instrumentation and their Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 USA applications in Physics, Biology, Space, Material Science, Medical Physics and Homeland Security www.nss-mic.org/2009 Plenary Sessions • Oral Sessions • Poster Sessions• Short Courses email [email protected] Special Topic Workshops • Industrial Exhibits • Companion Program phone 617.253.IEEE (4333) HILTON DISNEY WORLD, ORLANDO, FLORIDA Bleed full page template.indt 1 10/2/09 09:23:44 CONTENTS Covering current developments in high- energy physics and related fields worldwide CERN Courier is distributed to member-state governments, institutes and laboratories affiliated with CERN, and to their personnel. It is published monthly, except for January and August. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the CERN management. Editor Christine
    [Show full text]
  • Setting Our Sights on the Stars
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 96, p. 5337, May 1999 Editorial Setting our sights on the stars Astronomy is in a remarkable boom period, largely driven by further detailed studies of a great variety of astronomical objects. new facilities and steady increases in computing power. Tele- Andrew Fabian (6) presents the current picture of active galaxies, scopes on spacecraft and in large new ground-based facilities each of which contains a bright central region producing enormous have provided substantial increases in angular resolution, amounts of energy powered by a massive black hole. The third sensitivity, and wavelength coverage, each of which allows article of this set, by Dieter Hartmann (7), describes gamma ray deeper investigations of the Universe. The upshot continues to bursters. Some of these bursts are truly extraordinary. A recent be that each increase is matched by new and often unexpected burst, for a brief period of time (a little more than a minute) had discoveries. a luminosity (assuming isotropic radiation) much greater than that As part of the National Academy of Sciences’ initiative to of a supernova and far exceeding that of all the stars in its host promote the physical sciences, social sciences, and mathematics in galaxy: these truly are the ‘‘largest explosions in the Universe.’’ its house journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of The third set of Perspectives (appearing in this issue and Sciences (PNAS), we have put together the first in a series of wrapping up the special feature) deals with much closer regions special features on some of the latest developments in astronomy.
    [Show full text]