Issues
Physics Update
Reference Frame
Letters
Sokalratic Debate Continues, Fueled by Latour and Copenhagen Interpretations
Search and Discovery
Berkeley Lab Leapfrogs to Elements 116 and 118
The discovery of two new elements where none had been expected gives nuclear physicists hope of exploring hitherto inaccessible regions of the nuclear chart.
Space Telescope Key Project Completes Task of Measuring the Hubble Constant Within 10%
By measuring hundreds of periodically varying stars out to 80 million light‐years, the Hubble telescope has calibrated much brighter cosmological yardsticks that we can see billions of light‐years away.
Model Suggests Deep‐Mantle Topography Goes with the Flow
As geochemists, modelers, and seismologists try to make sense of data from Earth's mantle, a new model poses challenges to each group and suggests that progress in understanding the deepest regions of the mantle can occur only on a broad front.
Articles
Consistent Histories and Quantum Measurements
The traditional Copenhagen orthodoxy saddles quantum theory with embarrassments like Schrödinger's cat and the claim that properties don't exist until you measure them. The consistent‐histories approach seeks a sensible remedy.
Quantum Calorimetry
Novel detectors that operate at 60 millikelvin are now being used to study cosmic gas at millions of kelvin
Chaotic Dynamics and the Origin of Statistical Laws
Chaotic dynamics in real systems does not provide finite relaxation time to equilibrium or fast decay of fluctuations, and chaotic systems are not completely random in the sense originally postulated for statistical systems. These properties may require rethinking some of the fundamental assumptions of thermodynamics.