Issues

It is surprisingly easy to make a cantilever with a spring constant weaker than the equivalent spring between atoms, allowing a sharp tip to image both conducting and nonconducting samples at atomic resolution.

Optical pumping and light shifts have unexpectedly conspired to improve laser cooling by orders of magnitude and to produce the lowest kinetic temperatures ever measured.

Profound opportunities for understanding the mysteries of the inner Earth lie within reach. But it will take a concerted interdisciplinary research effort to model the total dynamic Earth system.