September 1996 Physics Today Contents


Articles:

How Things Break

Solids fail through the propagation of cracks, whose speed is controlled by instabilities at the smallest scales -- Michael Marder and Jay Fineberg

Extrasolar Planets

Astronomers have recently found planets orbiting nearby stars, ending centuries of speculation and opening up an exciting, already busy, field of research -- Alan P. Boss
      ** On-line information

The Discovery of Superconductivity

Though Kamerlingh Onnes always stressed the importance of precise measurement in his work, it was an accident that led to the first detection of superconductivity -- Jacobus de Nobel; Introduction by Peter Lindenfeld

Memories of Richard Feynman

A "new" set of lectures---on computation---by one of the more colorful characters in modern physics, gives rise to these reminiscences by an Englishman in Richard's court -- Anthony J. G. Hey


Departments:

Search and Discovery

In Earth's magnetic pas de deux, the inner core leads. Subtle shifts over time in historical seismological data may teach us as much about Earth as the most modern seismograph. Case in point: the recent discovery that Earth's inner core rotates faster than the planet's mantle and crust.
      ** On-line press release

Martians invaded Earth 13 000 years ago---maybe.
      ** Science's press release
      ** The Science research paper
      ** FAS page of related links

One-dimensional systems show signs of interacting electrons. Do electrons in one dimension interact in a way prescribed by the Luttinger-liquid theory? To answer that question, researchers are studying the tunneling through barriers in one-dimensional wires and across the edges of fractional quantum Hall states. A Bell Labs group has intriguing new results.

LEP is now making pairs of W bosons. CERN's big electron-positron collider has finally crossed the energy threshold for producing pairs of the heavy bosons that mediate the weak force.
      ** On-line press release

Meeting Preview

American Vacuum Society meets in Philadelphia
      ** Preliminary program on-line

Career Choices

Taking the ultimate flight

Physics Community

DOD upgrades its supercomputing facilities, and forges new partnerships with academia. By upgrading and consolidating its supercomputing capabilities to create an agency-wide state-of-the-art program, DOD aims not only to support weapons development, but also to become a major player in the national supercomputing community.

ESA council elects new chairman.

Physics olympiad held in Oslo.

APS fellowship to foster better science reporting.

Nova opens with portrayal of Einstein.

New group supports Hispanics in physics.

Knauss is AGU president-elect.

AIP halts PINET and launches Web service.

Books

A History of Astronomy: From 1890 to the Present, D. Leverington (reviewed by K. Krisciunas)

Interplanetary Magnetohydrodynamics, L. F. Burlaga (reviewed by W. H. Matthaeus)

The Collected Works of P. A. M. Dirac, 1924-1948, edited by R. H. Dalitz;
General Theory of Relativity, P. A. M. Dirac (reviewed by R. C. Hovis)

Interfaces in Crystalline Materials, A. P. Sutton and R. W. Balluffi;
Surfaces and Interfaces of Solid Materials, H. Lüth (reviewed by J. M. Gibson)

Atom Optics with Laser Light, V. I. Balykin and V. S. Letokhov (reviewed by M. Prentiss)

Superconductivity, C. P. Poole Jr, H. A. Farach and R. J. Creswick (reviewed by A. J. Leggett)

Heinrich Hertz: A Short Life, C. Susskind (reviewed by J. Buchwald)

Particle Physics at the New Millennium, B. P. Roe (reviewed by A. Firestone)

Plus...

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

      ** Quaternionic QM site (mentioned in Letters department)

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