Issues
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Cover Image
Cover Image
cover: This underwater photo, taken off the coast of California, shows giant kelp whose air bladders help it float in the ocean. Kelp is just one example of the many types of algae, both macroscopic and microscopic, that play a crucial role in ocean ecosystems. On page 26, Chuanmin Hu discusses the technologies that are helping scientists to better understand algae on a global scale and to make new discoveries in the field of ocean optics. (Photo by iStock.com/joebelanger.)
Readers' Forum
Better pay for grad students
“Quantum physics” doesn’t make the Sun shine
Correction
Search and Discovery
How a cloud of insects is (and isn’t) like a magnet
The renormalization group, a powerful method that uses the tools of quantum field theory, has found a place in biophysics.
Macroscopic mechanical oscillator is herded into a Schrödinger cat state
A new demonstration of a famous thought experiment has coaxed a classical 16 µg cluster of atoms to behave like a quantum object.
Issues and Events
Free textbooks and other open educational resources gain popularity
Affordable and customizable, they contribute to making higher education more inclusive and accessible.
Capture alone isn’t sufficient to bottle up carbon dioxide
The US has practically boundless capacity to store carbon dioxide. It just needs to find a way to do it.
Articles
Ocean optics illuminates aquatic algae
Large masses of algae in the great Atlantic Sargassum belt and around the world affect local ecosystems and the environment. Satellite imagery, combined with traditional research techniques, is now helping scientists to study them.
Ice fracturing
The process comprises the nucleation, propagation, and interaction of cracks. Understanding their micromechanics in ice is likely to help scientists understand fracture in all kinds of materials.
Making graduate admissions in physics more equitable
Preliminary results from the revamping of Michigan State University’s physics graduate admissions process suggest that the changes have made the procedure fairer for all.
Books
Squaring the quantum computing circle
Quantum Computing: From Alice to Bob, Alice Flarend and Bob Hilborn, Oxford U. Press, 2022, $80.00
The reality of cosmology
The Whole Truth: A Cosmologist’s Reflections on the Search for Objective Reality, P. J. E. Peebles, Princeton U. Press, 2022, $27.95
New Products
Obituaries
Frank Drake
Quick Study
The internet is full of things
The devices, or “things,” that communicate and share data via the internet are part of a network that‘s becoming increasingly connected.
Back Scatter
