Issues

An atom at room temperature zips around at thousands of kilometers per hour. A hit by a single photon barely fazes it. Yet somehow, researchers have harnessed radiation forces to slow atoms to a few centimeters per second and trap them in place. For that feat, this year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded.

A new trick for the repeated halving of optical frequency intervals now permits the measurement of optical atomic transitions with unprecedented accuracy.

The brandisht Sword of God before them blaz'd Fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat, And vapour as the Libyan Air adust, Began to parch that Temperate Clime

As it collapsed to form the Solar System, material in the solar nebula was churned up and homogenized. But not everything was lost in the mix …

The transistor was the product of basic research with a clear technological goal, but although the new technology was anticipated, its revolutionary impact was not.

How did the epicenter of the semiconductor industry come to be located in California, a continent away from New Jersey, where the transistor was invented and most of the fundamental semiconductor technology was developed?