Issues

Quantum electrodynamics predicts that photons scattering off nothing but light should create electron‐positron pairs. But only now has this inelastic light‐light scattering been seen in the laboratory.

Two experiments, using different optical schemes, have transmitted quantum states across a tabletop by means of classical messages and Einstein—Podolsky—Rosen entanglement. Applications will include new tests of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and quantum computation.

By cooling mercury ions and confining the ions to the one line in their linear ion trap where the RF field is exactly zero, researchers have minimized the jiggling and heating that have confounded many attempts to achieve precise determinations of frequency.

Researchers in acoustics have long wondered whether sound waves could replace mechanical components in devices such as compressors, combustion engines and pumps; now a team of researchers in Virginia has answered—with a very loud, YES!

Nucleosynthesis sites, Galactic black holes, gamma‐ray bursters, blazars—all yield up secrets and surprises when observed with the latest gamma‐ray detectors.

After President Truman rejected Vannevar Bush's proposal for a practical transition from wartime research to peacetime science, the President turned to a trusted aide to design science policy as we now know it.

The separation of science from society is today seen as artificial and unsustainable. The scientific community needs to negotiate a new contract with the society that funds it.