Issues
Reference Frame
Letters
Search and Discovery
Time-reversed microwaves beat the diffraction limit
Radiation from a modified antenna can be focused onto a spot 30 times smaller than the radiation's wavelength.
A novel composite is stiffer than diamond
A crystal form that is unstable in isolation can be confined in tin to yield a material with unprecedented resistance to compression or extension.
Mechanical force may determine the final size of tissues
By assuming compression inhibits cell division, two independent simulations account for the growth and size of a simple model organ.
Physics Update
Issues and Events
Quiet boom could revive supersonic air travel
Realizing overland supersonic flight is likely to proceed at a subsonic pace.
International Linear Collider gets reference design and cost estimate
But DOE warns that the design team's hope for completion of the 31-kilometer-long machine by 2019 may be too optimistic.
Industry supplants academia as career of choice
From the 1940s through the 1980s, most physicists entering the job market snapped up positions in academia, shunning industrial posts, but that trend reversed itself by the early 1990s.
Articles
Defending against nuclear weapons: A 1950s proposal
The discovery of strong focusing inspired Robert Wilson's ingenious idea to use mobile particle accelerators as a countermeasure against atomic weapons.
Quantum turbulence
Because superfluid eddies can only be formed from quantized vortex lines, one might expect quantum turbulence to be very different from its classical counterpart. But that's not necessarily so.
Quantum size effects in metallic nanostructures
Electrons confined in ultrathin metal films provide a window on the peculiar world of quantum mechanics.
CLEO/QELS to convene in Baltimore
Books
Nano-Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz and The Nanotech Pioneers: Where Are They Taking Us?
Introduction to computational science: Modeling and simulation for the sciences
Every other Thursday: Stories and strategies from successful women scientists
New Products
We Hear That
Obituaries
Alan Graham MacDiarmid
Sidney Millman
Donald Edward Osterbrock
Quick Study
Data analysis: Frequently Bayesian
The well-established mathematics of probability theory notwithstanding, assessing the validity of a scientific hypothesis remains a thorny proposition.