Table of contents

I was both pleased and impressed with the article on nuclear power by Professor Mackintosh in the April 1977 issue of Physics Bulletin (p165). I would however like to question one of his proposals for the long-term handling of radioactive wastes.

What a good idea! P L Kirby's suggestion (Physics Bulletin April 1977 pl49) for a collection of modern applications of physical principles could help transform the image of physics held by most school pupils (which is, roughly, a subject both hard and dull). In addition to collecting the applications, someone will have to give thought to the question of disseminating them.

The answer to H H Watson's question (Physics Bulletin April 1977 p149) must surely be the new ICSU-AB list of headings for the classification of abstracts (see p153 of the same issue). The snag is that when I was a lad, physics was scarcely any more than the current class 4; it took little account of the other nine classes from elementary particles in class 0 to astrophysics in class 9.

Rui Rosa's letter on Soviet physicists (Physics Bulletin December 1976 p523) finds me in agreement with its first paragraph: that the Institute should stick to professional matters and leave politics alone. A physicist should take part in politics, as every other citizen should, but should do this through political organizations of his or her own choice.

I was very pleased to see the article by Drs Steel and Studman in the February issue of the Physics Bulletin (p71). It illustrates very clearly the need for adaptability and fresh thinking in the choice of research topics in third world universities.

At first sight, I found it strange that I Bloomfield should write to Physics Bulletin (March 1977 p96) about his difficulties with technology based university departments. I say this because the academic readers of Physics Bulletin will be mainly in physics departments which are not technology based.

The May issue of Physics Bulletin (p208) includes a review of the findings of a subcommittee of the Institute's Membership Committee concerning the BEd degree as a qualification for membership of the Institute. I have no wish to question the findings of the subcommittee for these are precisely what might have been expected by those of us who are familiar with the B Ed degree, which is properly to be seen as professional rather than academic training.

Your article 'Chartered Physicist' in the April issue of Physics Bulletin (p155) mentions ambiguity of name or function. This may not always be a bad thing.

The provisional accounts of the European Physical Society (EPS) for 1976 showed a healthy surplus of Sw Fr 69000. This was Sw Fr 19000 more than the budgeted figure and was made possible by cutting administrative expenses to the absolute limit.

As expected, the UK science budget for the year 1977–8 will be more than 3% lower than last year in real terms. The figures (see table 1) were announced in April by Sir Frederick Stewart, Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC).

The current annual consumption of energy in this country is some 9.6 × 10¹⁸ J (340 × 10⁶ tonnes of coal equivalent) and our energy production is estimated to be in the 1990s some 14 × 10¹⁸ J (about 500 × 10⁶ tonnes of coal equivalent). Were the difference available for export at current prices, it would pay for our total net food and materials imports.

'The continuing evidence that we can make and control matter at temperatures of 10–20 million degrees implies strongly that with further effort and development we should be able to make, and control, matter at a hundred million degrees – which is what we want to produce a fusion reactor.' This confident statement came from Dr R S Pease, Director of the Culham Laboratory, in an interview given for Physics Bulletin at the end of April.

The market for analytical instruments in Western Europe, slowing down after a boom in the early 1970s, is still expected to almost double in size by 1985, according to a study recently published by Frost and Sullivan of New York and London. The report surveys the market for analytical instruments in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Since 1971 the Materials and Testing Group of The Institute of Physics has frequently discussed educational matters at its committee meetings. In the opinion of the committee educational standards in mathematics, science and engineering are declining.

Much has been written, in Physics Bulletin and elsewhere, about the lack of collaboration between university physics departments and industry, and many approaches have been suggested for overcoming the defect. There is, of course, no doubt that the main activity of university departments is the furtherance of their own subjects.

Maurice Goldman, Senior Physicist at the Centre for Nuclear Studies at Saclay, France, has been awarded the 1977 Holweck Medal and Prize of The Institute of Physics and the French Physical Society. This year's Max Born Medal and Prize of the Institute and the German Physical Society has been awarded to Walter E Spear, Professor of Physics at the University of Dundee.

As a small country wishing to undertake physics research at a serious level, Bulgaria has decided that the best way to do this is to limit the number of areas in which work is done. However, since physics cannot be segmented very successfully it is, as the President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the President of the Physical Society in Bulgaria say in an article in the April issue of Europhysics News, 'difficult to neglect any particular large field.'

Dr John White, a chemist and neutron scientist from the University of Oxford, has been appointed Director of the Institute Laue-Langevin, a research establishment in Grenoble, France, funded jointly by the UK, France and Germany. Dr White is on secondment to the Institute and has been there since April 1975 as an Associate Director.

X-ray topography studies using synchrotron radiation have provided the first direct evidence for the correctness of a mechanism proposed by L Néel 23 years ago. Domains in antiferromagnetics cannot be seen by most of the conventional techniques but, by using this new method Dr B K Tanner of the University of Durham revealed a domain structure in KNiF₃ and KCoF₃.

In contrast to the high-energy research normally associated with CERN the health and safety division has been working on the problem of early detection of electrical fires (which account for just under one-third of all accidental fires). Due to the nature of an electrical fire (caused by a bad contact or a conductor overheating, etc) it can take some time for the fire to break out.

The measurement of radial velocities – velocity in the direction of the line of sight – is of fundamental importance in stellar as well as in galactic astronomy. Obtaining a spectrum on a photographic plate and measuring the displacement of the spectral lines (which is very time consuming for faint objects) was the only method available until the 1960s, when image intensifiers became available.

Among the many mathematical tools that have been employed in the study of physics and engineering, complex variable theory has almost certainly been the most useful. A classic example demonstrating the manner in which it arises is provided by an electric network to which a step voltage is applied at time zero.

In contrast to nuclear, solar, wave and even wind energy, little is heard about the use of hydrogen as a future source of energy. With current hydrogen storage technology, hydrogen could not be a significant aid to solving world energy problems but in future this might not be true.

Europe's first geosynchronous scientific satellite (GEOS) had a disastrous launch on 20 April; instead of attaining the planned circular orbit of about 36 000 km, it reached a height of only 12 000 km. At the time of writing, the satellite had been moved into an elliptical orbit and it had been decided at a meeting of the experimenters concerned to switch on the experiments (in stages) during May to see what results could be obtained.

A new explanation of the colour changes in sodalite when subjected to various temperature and radiation effects is proposed by workers from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Sodalite (Na₈(Al₆Si₆O₂₄)Cl₂) is a naturally occurring mineral; in the natural state it exists in several colours and also in a transparent form, but blue is the most common variation.

The interaction between the neutron and electron spin provides a unique tool for studying the distribution of magnetism in solids. Neutron scattering measurements with magnetic materials are particularly sensitive when the spin state of the neutron is defined, that is when the neutron beams are polarized.

Interstellar clouds show up as conspicuous patches of obscuration against galactic star fields. Are they gigantic chemical factories or vast 'cradles of life'?

All experiments on Viking Lander 2 will be shut down during the Martian winter so that all remaining power can be used to maintain the temperature inside the craft. During the winter, which lasts from mid-April to mid-October, the temperature on the surface of the planet is expected to drop below −123 °C (the freezing point of carbon dioxide).

Membership of the European Economic Community has posed a challenge for British science and technology: to reverse the technical decline of British industry and to compete with sophisticated products in sophisticated markets. Keith Pavitt argues in this article that unless Britain can meet this challenge, the future for both British science and the EEC will be bleak

Collaboration and cooperation in scientific research within the European Community is widespread, but some of the projects undertaken to date have met very different fates. In this article Dr Gummett examines some of the possible reasons for this inconsistency and the lessons which can be learned from past ventures, for the benefit of current and future ones

We asked several European physicists what they felt about European science and scientists. Why had they travelled from their birthplace?

During the last decade the interest in complex nuclei as projectiles has considerably increased in all fields of research, where accelerated particles are used as a probe to study the nucleus or the atomic shell. That is why many of the existing low energy particle accelerators all over the world are used increasingly for providing beams of particles heavier than lithium.

Dr Cooper acknowledges in this article that our understanding of the brain is perhaps equivalent to that of physics in the Middle Ages. Much work has been done however, and here Dr Cooper discusses one aspect of the research: communication and control in the brain.

P G Burke and B L Moiseiwitsch (eds) Amsterdam: North-Holland 1976 pp x + 533 price $65.95

Atomic Processes and Applications is dedicated to Professor David R Bates on the occasion of his 60th birthday, in tribute to his outstanding personal contributions to various branches of atomic and molecular physics and to the related subjects of planetary and space physics. Few tributes can have been more richly deserved, as becomes abundantly clear on reading the introduction by Professor Sir Harrie Massey and the contributed reviews by 15 of Professor Bates' colleagues and former students.

Eugene H Avrett (ed) London and Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press 1976 pp vi + 554 price £15

This is very much the Harvard view of the universe – not just the editor but most of the contributors are associated with Harvard University. The book was prepared between October 1975 and January 1976, and has already been used as the basis of an undergraduate course in astronomy at Harvard.

pp xxxix + 300–769 Stephen G Brush Amsterdam: North-Holland 1976 price Vol 1 $24.75, Vol 2 $59.75, 2 vol set $75

Those of us who believe that the history of physics is an important study not only in its own right but also as a part of the general education of all physicists (and hopefully other scientists also) have long owed Stephen Brush a considerable debt of gratitude. This debt has been increased substantially by the appearance of these two volumes, which conveniently bring together a number of articles on kinetic theory and statistical mechanics written during the last two decades.

J Rud Nielsen (ed) Amsterdam: North-Holland 1976 pp xii + 702 price $105.95

The coming of quantum physics, with the concept of a world of microphenomena so drastically different from the everyday world of macrophenomena – on account of the discreteness of microprocesses and the consequent need to express predictions about them in terms of probabilities – was the greatest revolution ever in thought about the physical universe. The man whose miraculous insight showed him that properties of atomic spectra, experimental discoveries by Rutherford, theoretical ideas of Planck and of Einstein, and other not obviously related developments, demanded such a revolution, and nothing less, was Niels Bohr.

Hilary Rose and Steven Rose (eds) London: Macmillan 1976 pp xxvi + 218 price £10 (cased), £3.95 (paperback)

Hilary Rose and Steven Rose (eds) London: Macmillan 1976 pp xxvi + 205 price £10 (cased), £3.95 (paperback)

These collections of essays by various authors on 'Ideology of/in the Natural Sciences' are not likely to be received very sympathetically by readers of Physics Bulletin. It is not very soothing to be told that modern science is inhumanly misused, that it is oppressively and hierarchically managed, and that it is gravely distorted by political, cultural and economic prejudice.

Neil W Ashcroft and N David Mermin Eastbourne: Holt-Saunders 1976 pp xxi + 826 price £11

This book is rather more than just another introductory text on solid state physics. It has been developed from teaching experience at Cornell University and is intended as a single volume introductory textbook, suitable for students of physics, chemistry, engineering and materials science.

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.

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