Table of contents

The purpose of this letter is to draw your readers' attention to the plight of Dr Gregory Gol'shtein, a scientist in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Dr Gol'shtein has been trying to get an exit permit from the Soviet Union since 1971, in order to come to Israel.

The September 1977 issue of Physics Bulletin has just arrived, forwarded from the West African university where I worked for eight years. Could I comment on Professor M J Moravcsik's article on scientific assistance as applied to the third world?

Professor P J Black ('Revolution in sixthform studies' Physics Bulletin May 1978 p223) states three reasons for the proposal to replace A-level examinations by N and F. The first is that 'the prospective increase in size and academic range and interests of sixth-form populations make curricula reform necessary to meet the various needs of individual students'.

Di G Walford's response (Physics Bulletin May 1978 p199) to my letter in the March issue appeared to have some misunderstandings. He felt that the use of number of publications as an indicator of productivity required considerable justification and he had the opinion that it was unlikely that this method could be useful in international comparisons of research output from university departments.

Surely not another quark for Muster Mark? (Physics Bulletin September 1977 p410, which I have just received).

As one who has deserted pure physics for technology I cannot comment on Brian Woolnough's views on physics teaching in schools (Physics Bulletin May 1978 p203); but I am concerned about some of the more general points which he introduces. I have no certain knowledge about the general level of school leavers, but I do know that the standards of university entrants have declined in English and in mathematics.

I would like to correct certain points in R Hill's letter (Physics Bulletin May 1978 p200). Although the energy from satellite power stations (SPSS) would add to the heat load on the earth, the greater than 80% efficiency of the microwave reception would deliver more than twice the amount of useful energy that conventional plants deliver for the same total heat production.

Professor A R Mackintosh in his review of the Parker report on Windscale in the May 1978 issue of Physics Bulletin (p201) says 'Some of the opponents have complained that he failed to understand their case, but I do not believe that this complaint is justified'. Although the report does give a summary of the opponents' case on page 13, the evidence of individual objectors, if compared with the weekly New Scientist and the daily Guardian reporting on Windscale, is often curtailed, quoted out of context or dismissed.

Can anyone produce proof that Einstein understood Oliver Heaviside's concept of a transverse electromagnetic wave which travelled forward unchanged at the speed of light? I find plenty of evidence which indicates that he did not.

One of the more innovative ideas discussed at this year's Annual Representative Meeting, held in May, was that the Institute should hold a regular 'general physics' conference. There was support for the suggestion amongst representatives though views differed about its frequency and format.

The figures for the Department of Energy's spending on research and development, now available (Energy Paper Number 28: Report on Research and Development 1976–77 HMSO £1.75), show some interesting trends. Much more is now being spent through the nationalised industries, gas and coal in particular, and on offshore oil and gas technology.

The Institution of Electrical Engineers has agreed that from 1982 a second class honours degree will be the minimum acceptable standard of qualification for membership. This was one proposal from a report on education and training of electrical engineers prepared by a working party under the chairmanship of Mr J H H Merriman.

This year, the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre in Oxford celebrates its fifth anniversary. The Centre grew out of a concern which arose in the 1960s about the records of eminent contemporary personalities in science, engineering and medicine.

At the Institute's Annual Representative Meeting in May (see above review) there was much discussion on the possibility of the Institute holding a regular 'general physics' conference. Members might therefore be interested to hear of the experiences of the Irish Branch which each spring holds a general weekend conference.

The European Space Agency has named the three scientists who will serve as payload specialists in support of the first Spacelab flight in 1980 (see Physics Bulletin February 1978 p60). They are Ulf Merbold, a research scientist from Germany, Claude Nicollier, an astronomer and pilot from Switzerland, and Wubbo Ockels, a physicist from the Netherlands.

On 20 May NASA launched Pioneer Venus Orbiter, the first of a pair of unmanned craft designed to make a detailed scientific study of Venus. The second craft, Pioneer Venus Probe, will be launched in late summer/early autumn but due to its faster journey will arrive at Venus in December only a few days after Orbiter.

In the past few months x-ray astronomy has entered its third era, with the flood of observations from the first of a new generation of large satellites, HEAO-A. The first phase, of rocket flights, ended with the immensely successful satellite UHURU launched in 1970 and since then a succession of small satellites - principally the American SAS-3, the Dutch ANS and the British ARIEL V - have maintained the steady accumulation of observations which are possible with small-aperture instruments.

Superconducting Josephson effects have found a variety of applications during the 16 years since they were predicted. Hypersensitive magnetometers resolve as little as 10^-11 of the earth's magnetic field and voltmeters resolve about 10^-15 V.

Sometimes 1969 seems very remote. It was a time of buoyancy in universities with potential students beating on doors of physics departments.

Despite considerable interest in the electronic properties of surfaces little work has been done on surface vibrations. Surface phonons are almost impossible to detect by conventional phonon-sensitive spectroscopic methods as these are bulk sensitive.

NASA has recently reactivated an instrument for measuring the flow of the solar wind which has lain inoperative on-board Pioneer 11 for three years. The instrument which had operated properly during the 21 month journey to Jupiter stopped working shortly afterwards.

It is only 13 years since the first commercial scanning electron microscope, the Cambridge Stereoscan, was introduced. Since then the growth of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been so rapid, that access to such a microscope has become virtually essential for scientists and technologists who work with materials in any form – geologists, biologists, engineers or forensic scientists – as well as the more obvious physicists, chemists and materials scientists.

It was at the beginning of 1940 that the former 'Physica' laboratory was renamed 'Zeeman Laboratorium' and Dr C J Gorter from Leiden appointed its new Directing Professor. Professor Zeeman had retired several years before, having been Director since the building was inaugurated in 1923.

In his article in the May issue of Physics Bulletin (p223) Professor P J Black outlined the proposals for replacing A-levels by a new pattern of sixth-form curricula and examinations: N- and F-levels. If these proposals are accepted, fairly drastic cuts will be needed in the content of sixth-form physics courses.

A E Roy Bristol: Adam Hilger 1978 pp xiv + 489 price £12.50

A modern book on orbit theory and practice has long been needed. Although primarily a textbook Professor Roy's book goes a long way to satisfy this need.

S Chandrasekhar London: Cambridge University Press 1977 pp x + 342 price £18

Even the most detached of physicists can hardly have failed to observe in his local shops during the last two years the appearance of a new component, the liquid crystal display. There is now a move into the laboratory, with multimeters and other instruments incorporating liquid crystals, and this may stimulate the more curious to seek out a book which explains the complex optical properties of these strange materials in terms readily appreciated by the nonspecialist.

E J Burge London: Clarendon/Oxford University Press 1977 pp 193 price £6 (cased), £3.25 (paperback)

In just under 200 pages Professor Burge attempts to trace the development of nuclear physics all the way from the pre-Rutherford era to the post-Ting-Richter age. There are chapters on accelerators and detectors, nuclear reactions and nuclear models, cosmic rays and elementary particles together with appendices on Rutherford scattering, barrier penetration and conservation of momentum.

Roger C Barrett and Daphne F Jackson London: Clarendon/Oxford University Press 1977 pp x + 566 price £17.50

This book is largely about the charge and matter distributions of the ground state of atomic nuclei although chapter 8 on nuclear reactions discusses spectroscopic factors for both ground and excited states. As an introduction to and survey of the literature, it is very complete and a little more discrimination and comment would save the reader a certain amount of mental indigestion.

R H Golde (ed) London: Academic 1977 Vol I: pp xx + 524 price £21; Vol II: pp xx + 382 price £17

The production of so magnificent a publication as these two volumes is an indication of the heightening interest now apparent in lightning and associated phenomena and of the rapid advances now being made. The current activity, of course, presents its consequential paradox, namely that the publication may soon be out of date.

E Fromm, E Gebhardt (eds) Berlin: Springer 1976 pp xx + 747 price DM 196

In recent years equipment has become commercially available to measure routinely the concentration of gases in metals in the parts per million range. If one could then locate in the literature the information on the solubility of the gas, one could ascertain whether all the gas was in solid solution.

J M Schultz (ed) New York: Academic 1977 Part A pp xiv + 451 price £31.25 Part B pp xiii + 453–785 price £24.50

These two volumes contain eight comprehensive review articles all dealing with the structure and properties of solid polymers. The topics covered include morphology and structure, rubber elasticity, viscoelasticity, yield and crazing, fatigue, mechanical anisotropy, electronic properties, electrical breakdown and environmental degradation.

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.

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