January 1995 Physics Today Contents


Articles:

Research on Silicon and Germanium in World War II

The dawn of the age of silicon electronics occurred during the war, when point-contact silicon rectifiers became standard nonlinear elements in microwave radar circuits -- Frederick Seitz

Strategic Curiosity: Semiconductor Physics in the 1950s

The distinction between strategic and curiosity-driven research may be artificial -- Henry Ehrenreich

Interactions of Ultra-Intense Laser Light with Matter

Generating plasma beat waves with extremely short and intense laser pulses may turn out to be the easiest way to accelerate electrons to a trillion electron volts -- Chandrashekhar J. Joshi and Paul B. Corkum


Departments:

Reference Frame

Confessions of a committee junkie -- Daniel Kleppner

Search and Discovery

New compound brightens outlook for photorefractive polymers

Yohkoh reveals site of solar flare energy release

Convincing evidence seen for isotopes of element 110

Washington Reports

Elections ring in Newtonian age, with fate of R&D in question

Livermore is enmeshed in politics of building laser fusion facility

Physics Community

Survey shows makeup of AIP member societies

Bromley will lead APS in 1997

ACA vice president for 1995 is Huber

AAPT elects Edge as vice president

AAPT establishes two education awards

Weart wins Gemant Award

Opinion

Freedom to choose: Is it a waste? -- Sudip Chakravarty

Books

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, P. R. Gross and N. Levitt (reviewed by A. R. Kantrowitz)

Order, Chaos, Order: The Transition from Classical to Quantum Physics, P. Stehle (reviewed by Z. Wang)

From Alchemy to Quarks, S. Glashow (reviewed by I. D. Abella)

Introduction to Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, G. A. Somorjai (reviewed by B. E. Bent)

G. I. Budker: Reflections and Remembrances, edited by B. N. Breizman and J. W. van Dam (reviewed by A. Vainshtein)

Plus...

Our regular sections: Letters, New Products, We Hear That, and Information Exchange.


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