Issues
Readers’ Forum
Problem sets and other deterrents for women
Search and Discovery
Reactor experiment reveals neutrino oscillation’s third mixing angle
A nonzero value for this elusive parameter offers a possible explanation for the cosmic shortage of antimatter.
Custom shapes from swell gels
A new lithographic method patterns UV-sensitive, water-absorbing polymers to produce complex, self-folding shapes.
Toward an attosecond view of molecules
Theory and experiment combine to examine an important ultrafast process in polyatomic molecules.
Issues and Events
Shhhh. Listen to the data
Sifting through large amounts of data, monitoring data streams, and communicating results are promising areas for sonification.
Fostering a research “ecosystem”
Universities and DOE labs are in solidarity about support for research.
Obama urges renewed efforts on arms control
Several nations are reported to have shed all their weapons-usable materials, but the president warns that the threat of nuclear terrorism remains.
Nuclear security agency and weapons labs at odds
Micromanagement by NNSA is blamed for adding hundreds of millions of dollars in labs’ extra costs.
Taking steps toward the next big particle collider
Two candidate successors to the Large Hadron Collider are closing ranks, and a move is afoot for Japan to be the host.
White House seeks to get a handle on “big data”
Scientific enterprise is “drowning in data but starving for understanding.”
Articles
Molding the flow of light: Photonics in astronomy
Light gathered and focused by a telescope must often be refocused onto spectrographs and other complex instruments. To such ends, astronomers are coming to realize the benefits of photonics.
Insights from the classical atom
Decades after the 1920s rise of quantum mechanics, the classical mechanical framework remained a useful lens through which to examine ionization, scattering, and other atomic processes.
A tale of openness and secrecy: The Philadelphia Story
A now little-known manuscript prepared by nine young physicists as a statement about the futility of scientific secrecy quickly became a test of the limits of free discourse in the nuclear age.
Books
New Products
Obituaries
Stig Hagström
Aden Baker Meinel
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow
Quick Study
Turbulence in two dimensions
A turbulent flow confined to a plane is a fascinating nonlinear system with surprising connections to many branches of physics.