Table of contents

Many of my colleagues have expressed both astonishment and dismay at the article 'What future for the universities?' by Professor J M A Lenihan in the November issue of the Physics Bulletin (p480). For, instead of looking to the future, Professor Lenihan dwells morbidly on the past or at best sums up the present state of universities in uncomplimentary terms.

Dr Sharma (Physics Bulletin October 1975 p429) has performed a useful service by drawing attention to the current communication gap between mathematics and theoretical physics. He is right to stress the importance of bridging the gap, but I cannot accept his diagnosis that the major fault lies with the theoretical physicist who is unwilling to learn the language of mathematical logic.

With reference to the articles recently published on the subject of medical physics (Physics Bulletin October 1975), and in particular medical imaging, it would seem that the particular attributes of the gamma camera were not elucidated. EMI-type scanning is, as is most transmission radiology, a static morphological process.

E J Wenham (Physics Bulletin October 1975 p431) predicts, no doubt accurately, a dismal future for physics, and physical science in general, in the reformed college of education. The future of school physics, he contends, will be largely in the hands of the universities.

The Science Research Council's budget for 1974/75 was 2% lower in real terms than that for 1973/74 and it is expected to drop by a further 2% in 1975/76. In view of the likelihood of very little growth in the budget before 1979/80, the SRC has again been reviewing its programme to see how it can maintain an effective research system in basic science and engineering in the UK.

The continuing debate, in the pages of Physics Bulletin, on the future of physics as a major discipline of study in the secondary sector of education, and therefore almost by definition or at least succession, in the tertiary sector, suggests that we may be witnessing the geriatric phase of the subject. It is the purpose of this communication to suggest that hastening the ultimate demise may be charitable and desirable.

After the gradual cutback in the number of academic posts in the universities, there is a possibility that highly specialized research workers will find employment difficult to come by unless they are prepared to look outside the universities and research for posts. Not only is it desirable that more PhDs move into industry and government to apply their skills to problems of administration, business and finance but also it is becoming increasingly necessary that they should do so because of the shortage of posts available in the fields of their own specializations.

Considering that the entire social, political and economic structure of this country is now up for determination it is surprising how few people have joined the debate. Of course, those who already hold the stage – the politicians, trade unionists and broadcasting personalities – make up for the rest by the sheer noise of their sound and fury.

Three years ago the Government published a slightly amended version of Lord Rothschild's report as the White Paper 'Framework for Government Research and Development'. This document suggested the establishment of the 'customer/contractor' principle – departments commission research from the appropriate research institutions.

The Science Research Council has announced its long awaited plans for a central high power laser facility for use by university and polytechnic research groups. It will be sited at the Rutherford Laboratory where a full programme of laser development will be undertaken on the basis of which further facilities may be provided.

The Institute of Acoustics has recently published its first annual report, for the year 1974. It was formed on 1 January 1974 by members of the former Acoustics Group of The Institute of Physics and of the former British Acoustical Society (BAS) and now has more than 750 members, including engineers, architects, physicists and building scientists.

Discussions of energy in all its forms and aspects were to be found at the third general conference of the European Physical Society 'Energy and physics'. Thus, in addition to the more definitely physical sessions covering cosmology, plasmas, high energy particles and thermodynamics there were others more tightly linked to the immediate issues of our time on such subjects as geothermal and solar power, fission/fusion comparisons, environmental safety and degradation, future trends in energy consumption and strategies for the maintenance of energy supplies.

On 7 October the USSR Academy of Sciences celebrated its 250th anniversary. Amongst those in the gathering at the Kremlin were members of the many academic institutions and academies in the USSR, leaders of the Communist Party and members of foreign and international scientific organizations.

Polytechnics can make a special contribution to research and training in science and engineering by tackling research that has application potential and by studying real life problems of a broadly multidisciplinary character. This is the view of the Polytechnics Committee of the Science Research Council which has been considering ways in which it can help polytechnics develop a distinctive role in research and postgraduate training.

A decision is imminent on the UK's participation in a major project to study the earth's upper atmosphere using radar scatter techniques. Known as EISCAT (European incoherent scatter radar project) the scheme will use ground-based techniques to yield information on the structure, temperature and dynamics of the upper atmosphere in the auroral zone.

The separation of harvested potatoes from unwanted stones and clods of earth by hand has proved to be both wasteful and expensive, especially now that seasonal labourers are in short supply. The Scottish Institute of Agricultural Engineering (SIAE) has therefore been researching into ways of sorting automatically potatoes from the rubbish picked up by mechanical harvesters.

The potential hazards which accompany the handling of large quantities of inflammable vapours and gases have grown enormously in recent years and as a result have led to an upsurge of interest in explosion and detonation phenomena. As studies of these involve the interrelationship of physical gasdynamics and chemical kinetics, they embrace a wide range of disciplines.

The use of recently developed dating techniques of archaeology and palaeontology to compile a history of the earth's magnetic field are described in the September issue of La Récherche. Better data will help to confirm or reject possible models for the origins of this phenomenon.

Yet another hypothesis has been put forward to explain the mysterious Tungus catastrophe of 30 June 1908, when something flattened trees over a vast area of the Siberian taiga leaving no trace of a crater and no meteorite remains. This time a suggested identity for the mysterious object comes from nearer its home.

Three different papers on methods of preparing new phases in polyethylene and polystyrene were the highlights of the biennial polymer physics conference held at Shrivenham in September. Recent experiments on high pressure crystallization of polyethyllene, reported by Dr Bassett (Reading), have revealed the existence of the intermediate phase which he had predicted at the previous biennial conference.

Observers of unusual weather phenomena now have a means of pooling together their observations. The body providing this medium is the Tornado and Storm Research Organization (TORRO), Cockhill House, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, which was set up in 1974 on an amateur basis to investigate 'as fully as possible cases of severe storms occurring in Britain, Western Europe and elsewhere, with special emphasis placed on those local storms which develop into destructive thunderstorms, hailstorms or tornadoes'.

Computers are now widely used in physics as an aid to data reduction, in data storage and display and in data retrieval. Computational physics is however wider than this.

For several years now, we have devoted a part of the December issue of Physics Bulletin to a review of some aspect of physics. Occasionally we have tried to pinpoint the more outstanding developments in narrow areas that had attracted attention during the previous year, and at other times we have taken a wider view and attempted to give a feel for the main trends in broader fields.

In 1974 the double storage ring system DORIS at Hamburg came into operation and the very first experiments promptly confirmed the existence of the new particles discovered at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the SPEAR storage ring in California. Very soon some new properties of these particles relevant to theoretical interpretations were determined at DORIS.

In most areas of science and engineering, SI units have by now been adopted completely. The base units are the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin (temperature), candela (luminous intensity) and the mole.

This year's Nobel prizes in physics go to Aage Bohr, Ben Mottelson and James Rainwater for their contributions to our understanding of the atomic nucleus, in particular for their discovery that it is capable of organized collective behaviour not unlike the rotations and vibrations of a complex molecule. The award will delight a great number of people.

H S W Massey, E H S Burhop and H B Gilbody London: Oxford University Press 1915 pp xvi + 3123–3698 price £17.50

The first section of this encyclopaedic work gives a comprehensive account of the behaviour of positrons and mesons in gases and to some extent in other media. Although positrons are soon annihilated and mesons soon decay, there is still time for enough processes to occur to fill nearly half this volume.

Symbols Committee of the Royal Society London: Royal Society 1975 pp 56 price £1

A completely revised second edition of this useful compendium of international agreements and recommended practice on physical quantities, units and symbols. Apart from updating to the end of 1974 (eg the inclusion of the units becquerel and gray and the prefixes peta ≡10¹³ and exa ≡ 10¹⁸) there are several changes of emphasis.

S J Fleming London and Bristol: Institute of Physics 1975 pp xii + 164 price £6.50 (£4.75 IOP Members)

This book is a very valuable addition to the existing literature on the detection of the forgery of art and archaeological treasures in that it places particular emphasis on authentication by means of scientific examination. However, it is far more than a mere handbook of scientific methods since, in discussing many specific case studies, both the scientific and the more familiar art historical evidence is presented and at the same time much interesting biographical information on known forgers is included.

Raymond J Seeger Oxford: Pergamon 1974 pp viii + 290 price £7.20

Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics have fascinating histories and fascinating logical foundations. J Willard Gibbs made outstanding contributions to both these subjects and his writings on them are of great interest from both the historical and the logical points of view.

Rom Harré (ed) London: Clarendon/Oxford University Press 1975 pp vi + 104 price £1.75 (paperback) £4.00 (cased)

One hundred pages of penetrating thought from distinct standpoints provide us with the optimistic view that science, despite its tensions and hurdles, is progressing nevertheless. How the 'progress' happens and where the 'obstacles' arise were discussed at the 1973 Herbert Spencer lectures.

M Schulz and L J Lanzerotti, J G Roederer (ed) Berlin: Springer-Verlag 1974 pp ix + 215 price DM 78, $31.90

One of the first major scientific discoveries, following the advent of artificial earth satellites in 1957, was that of the radiation belts consisting of energetic electrons and protons trapped in the geomagnetic field. Since then a considerable effort has been made to understand, theoretically, the dynamical processes involved.

J A Ratcliffe London: Cambridge University Press 1975 pp x + 256 price £2.20

This book provides an introduction to the structure and behaviour of the Earth's outer environment. The usual distinctions between the ionosphere and the magnetosphere are de-emphasized and stress is instead given to the underlying physical processes which determine the characteristics of the two regions.

M Ishii Paris: Eyrolles 1975 pp xxix + 248 price 83F (paperback)

This book sets up the rigorous theoretical foundations for describing such diverse two phase flow probems as are associated with systems connected with power generation, heat transfer, transport, lubrication, information, environmental control, etc. The complete set of local laws and appropriate boundary conditions are clearly expounded, and one third of the work deals with the practical importance and unifying power of the time-average operator in making contact with macroscopic models.

R W Lardner Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1974 (distributed by Books Canada, London) pp xi + 363 price £10

This book is directed at applied mathematicians. The connecting links between the two topics in the title are the physical role of dislocations in fracture and, perhaps a more important one here, the use of the elastic field of a dislocation as a Green's function in macroscopic crack calculations.

A Nagy and M Szilágyi London: Macmillan 1974 pp 514 price £11

'Each chapter in this book starts from a general basis – Newton's and Maxwell's equations – and arrives at a final design formula. The fields treated here are sufficiently detailed to permit an appropriate degree of reliability in the analyses of some specific problems, the most important of which in practice have been solved by the authors.'

H M Nussenzweig London, New York, Paris: Gordon and Breach 1974 pp xiv + 246 price £8.70

Professor Nussenzweig, known for his contributions to the analytical structure of the scattering matrix, has written an introduction to the mathematical physics of quantum optics. Anybody who wishes to learn the mathematics of coherence, classical and quantal, of light fields and their interaction with atoms can do no better than turn to this book.

Om Johari and Irene Corvin (eds) Chicago: IIT Research Institute 1975 pp xvi + 816 price $25

Diagnosis of death by electrocution, determination of whether car lights were on at the time of a crash, identification of welding debris on a pound note taken from a safe – these are examples of applications of scanning electron microscopy unfamiliar to most of us which are presented in this latest volume in the IITRI series. The first section of the book deals with more conventional aspects of scanning microscopy with contributions on gun design, detection systems and imaging modes, specimen stages and specimen preparation.

L Allen and J H Eberly Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp xiii + 233 price £10.80 (cased)

Allen and Eberly, who have been most actively engaged in the expanding field of laser physics have written this introduction to optical resonance, pulse propagation and superradiance and allied phenomena relying mainly on quasiclassical methods. The mathematical apparatus and the actual, minimal, amount of quantum electrodynamics put to use, should make this text accessible to every graduate physicist.

I G Kaplan London: Academic Press 1975 pp xii + 370 price £16.55

This book, translated by J Gerratt, is an extended and updated English edition of the original Russian edition of 1969. Group theoretical methods are widely used in a variety of molecular problems.

(in French) G Toulouse and P Pfeuty Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble 1975 pp 278 price FF 65

Of all the important developments in theoretical physics over the last 20 years or more, the recent burgeoning of the renormalization group in statistical mechanics and in field theory has surely been the least well served by general reviews and introductions. Though exciting in their overall tenour and useful to the already active researcher, these have been exceptionally difficult of access even from immediately neighbouring fields.

R Balescu Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp xiv + 742 price £16.20

Unlike many of the texts published in this field, this survey of basic concepts and modern developments in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics fills a real gap. It brings together in one volume many recent results, particularly in the theory of critical phenomena and in kinetic theory.

S M Bilenky Oxford: Pergamon Press 1974 pp viii + 186 price £6

The author's aim in this book, he says in the foreword, is to present the basic principles of S matrix theory and field theory in such a way that physicists (primarily experimental physicists), and advanced students specializing in elementary particle physics, can see easily how the Feynman rules for relativistic perturbation theory arise. The book begins with the elements of scattering theory in the interaction representation, and classical field theory.

Charles P Enz and Jagdish Mehra (eds) Dordrecht-Holland: D Reidel 1974 pp xxiii + 552 price Dfl 125, $39.50

Physical Reality and Mathematical Description is a festschrift in honour of the sixtieth birthday of the Swiss–American theoretical physicist, Joseph Maria Jauch. Tragically Jauch died on 30 August 1974 before this book came off the press: it is a most fitting memorial to Jauch's contributions to natural philosophy, the foundations of quantum mechanics, field theory and the mathematics of scattering.

D J Craik (ed) Chichester: J Wiley 1975 part 1 pp xxi + 482, part 2 pp xxi + 483–798 price £15 each

Since the work of J L Shoek in the 1940s, ferrites have become increasingly important to industry. In parallel the academic world has probed these materials in depth using the simple localized electron model of magnetism.

M Pilkuhn (ed) Stuttgart: B G Teubner 1974 pp 1358 price DM 88

This massive tome of 1358 pages, edited and published with remarkable speed, contains the 27 invited and 206 contributed papers submitted to this latest of an important series of conferences. The scope is enormous, covering every conceivable aspect of semiconductor physics with (at an average of five pages per contributed paper) breathtaking compression.

Monthly round-up of new instruments, components and equipment released by industry vendors.

Information about appointments and awards, meetings, and member services from the Institute of Physics.

Elections to Membership

Late-breaking conference news, calls for papers and general news.