Issues
From the Editor
Readers’ Forum
Search and Discovery
LIGO detects gravitational waves
The twin laser interferometers nearly simultaneously received the call of two black holes in the violent final instants of their merger.
An atomic-scale optical modulator
The movement of a few metal atoms in a narrowly tapered waveguide dramatically alters the transmission of light through it.
Printed shape-shifting materials mimic biological structures
A hydrogel composite ink adopts different three-dimensional configurations depending on how the ink is patterned on a surface.
Issues and Events
What can Chernobyl teach us?
Disaster preparation is getting more attention since Fukushima underscored that nuclear accidents can occur anywhere.
Reactor conversions need time, not more money
DOE says it will be 2032 before highly enriched uranium is supplanted in all US research reactors.
Combatting professional isolation through mutual mentoring
An online system to be launched soon will help female faculty self-organize into mentoring groups.
Articles
Physics in 100 years
The fundamental questions of the future will be profound, sophisticated, and difficult to answer. And the great projects of the future will be grand indeed.
The difficult birth of NASA’s Pluto mission
A history of the patronage, design, and funding of New Horizons offers a glimpse of how US space-science policy was formulated before and after the turn of the 21st century.
What remote labs can do for you
Internet technologies are helping physics teachers provide their students with more lab time and expose them to a wider variety of experiments.
Books
New Products
Obituaries
Leo Philip Kadanoff
Jan Korringa
Quick Study
What did ancient people eat?
With the aid of confocal microscopy, bioarchaeologists can quantitatively assess tooth wear and determine diet.