Table of contents

The domain of science in the full range of human endeavour is restricted to very specific fields. Although the influence and development of science in the last century has been very pervasive there are large areas in which science contributes little.

With reference to the October 1981 issue of Physics Bulletin I wish to point out an incorrect statement on page 313 under one of the 'In brief' paragraphs. Yarsley Technical Centre was not the first laboratory to be approved by the British Calibration Service for thermal conductivity measurements.

Any physicist who has read Sir Fred Hoyle's recent book Ice can hardly fail to be struck by the fact that the risks associated with a new ice age are far greater than many other risks, such as those associated with nuclear power stations, which often attract publicity. Sir Fred's theory, briefly, is that ice ages are caused by stone meteorites of 300 m or more in diameter, and terminated by iron meteorites of similar size.

Sir Sam Edwards (Physics Bulletin September 1981 p271) believes that the nuclear deterrent has kept the peace for the last 35 years. Perhaps so, but he goes on to claim that 'Defence scientists in this country strive to maintain our defences effectively and efficiently in a condition expected by our political leaders and the country at large.

The September issue of Physics Bulletin contains comments on Goethe's concept of the urphaenomen (p281). The writer implies that Goethe stopped his investigations when he had discovered what he calls the 'urphaenomen' because he thought that the human mind was incapable of 'resolving it'.

The work of constructing the new common examination system at 16+ is proceeding apace. Six new Examining Groups are being formed, four by association of the present GCE and CSE boards to cover England in four regions and one for each of Wales and Northern Ireland.

A limited number of grants of up to £2500 for research in the sciences and applied sciences are available from the Nuffield Foundation under its Small Grants Scheme. These grants will enable scientists to follow through ideas at relatively short notice and to take advantage of unique or rare opportunities; they will provide short term assistance for urgent work and support for speculative and innovative research that may be at too early a stage to be considered by the research councils.

For the first time, investment in projects by the National Research Development Corporation exceeded £20m during the year ended 31 March 1981. In addition, cash and deposits also increased to £20m, thus ensuring that the corporation can survive on its own reserves for the time being (see 32nd Annual Report and Statement of Accounts 1980–81).

A report published recently by the Methodist Church, entitled Shaping Tomorrow, aims to provide facts on current technological issues for its congregation. It was compiled by a group of British scientists who are also practising Christians and shows how these scientists, working in various fields, reconcile their work with their faith.

Birmingham city council and the University of Aston are joining forces in a project to establish a science and technology development centre in the city. The council has purchased a 3.5 acre site adjoining the university, and the Birmingham city council and the University of Aston are joining forces in a project to establish a science and technology development centre in the city.

A delay in a government decision on funding of the fast reactor programme has enabled improvements to be made in the outline design of the Commercial Demonstration Fast Reactor produced by the National Nuclear Corporation. This was stated by Dr Walter Marshall, Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, when introducing the Authority's annual report in September (UKAEA Annual Report 1980–81, available from HMSO price £2.50).

Following the total success of the L03 mission, the Ariane launcher is scheduled for its fourth and final test flight on 18 December 1981. For this flight (L04) Ariane will carry the first of two Maritime European Communication Satellites (MARECS-A), as well as the technological capsule (CAT) which is designed to provide information on the launcher's performance, in common with all previous Ariane test flights.

Moves to restructure the publication of short and urgent papers by the American Physical Society appear to have got well into their stride. As reported in the August 1981 issue of Physics Today (p55) the new 'Rapid communications' sections of Physical Review seem to have proved popular with authors, although the future philosophy and content of Physical Review Letters are a bit less certain.

Back in July, a report was published by the European Fusion Review Panel stating its conviction that Europe should remain in the forefront of fusion research and development (see ATOM September 1981 p231). The main objective of the European fusion programme in coming decades, according to the panel, must be to prove the feasibility of fusion as an energy source, and to search for ways of exploiting its potential fully.

Members considering their orders for Institute periodicals for next year are reminded of several significant reductions in subscription rates. The members' subscription rates for two professional magazines are cut by 14 and 22%: Physics Education is reduced from £14.50 to £12.50 per annum, and Physics in Technology from £16 to £12.50 per annum.

Physics in Medicine and Biology, the medical physics journal published by The Institute of Physics in collaboration with the Hospital Physicists' Association, will be published monthly from January 1982. The journal is now in its 26th year and has shown a healthy growth in both contributions and circulation.

Teaching jobs in England and Wales are guaranteed for students embarking on the new two-year pilot schemes of teacher training scholarships launched recently by the government. The £500 tax-free scholarships are intended to encourage able graduates in mathematics, physics and chemistry to take up teaching, and will be linked to one-year postgraduate courses at six English and two Welsh teacher training institutions.

An interesting comparison has come to light recently between the collections in the USA's university research libraries and that of the British Library Lending Division in Yorkshire. The former are the subject of an editorial by George Black of Southern Illinois University, in Science (213 p715 August 1981), in which he highlights the deterioration in quality of the science and technology collections in particular.

At its meeting in October, the Council of Engineering Institutions Board discussed the future of the CEI and agreed to consult its membership on the matter of transferring the Engineers Registration Board to the new Engineering Council. The transfer would include the power to award the Chartered Engineer title.

The highlight of the Plasma Physics Group's annual conference has always been the superb range of invited lectures. In this respect the 8th annual conference, held at the University College of Swansea on 8–10 July 1981, certainly lived up to the high standard of its predecessors; for this achievement alone the organisers should be congratulated.

If an atom moves towards a source of radiation, the frequency of which is f, it 'sees' a frequency f + Δf and if the latter is one of its natural resonances, it will absorb the photon (energy hf). Later the atom will return from the excited state, emitting a photon of energy h(f + Δf) and so overall it will have lost hΔf.

This meeting, organised by the Biological Engineering Society in collaboration with the Disabilities Study Unit, was held at the CIBA Foundation, London, on 13–15 October 1981. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss some of the research and development projects being pursued which involve technological aids for the disabled, and to consider their possible applications.

Disease (and medication) can alter the flow of blood to certain parts of the body and it can therefore be useful in diagnosis and treatment to know the rate at which blood is reaching the affected organ. In particular, it is important to discover whether there are any areas of zero metabolism and whether this is in fact showing that the cells there are dead.

About the turn of the century, a song form was introduced based on a harmonic progression known as the cycle of fifths. The style was such that the singers could improvise the harmony, easily predicting forthcoming chords and inversions.

It has in the past been my experience that as one approaches the end of a conference the attendance tails off; I have not investigated the exact functional form of this phenomenon but I expect someone will eventually present a PhD thesis on the topic. However, there has to be an exception to every rule and the exception to this one occurred at the group theory colloquium held at the University of Kent at Canterbury (31 August – 4 September 1981).

Recent work has shown that for many with impaired hearing the problem is a reduction in their ability to resolve two signals with energies which lie in adjacent frequency regions. The 'masking' that results is also experienced by those with quite normal hearing when they try to listen to what someone is saying across a crowded room.

The last few years have witnessed a steady increase in the volume of experimental data from diffusion and electrical conductivity studies of solids, and rapid developments in experimental techniques and theoretical understanding of transport processes. It was therefore timely that Nato, in collaboration with several other organisations, should sponsor the advanced study institute 'Mass transport in solids' which was held on 28 June–11 July 1981 at the University of Rennes Institute of Technology at Lannion, France.

Thanks to the small lattice units and strong bonds that are made when carbon atoms get together with four neighbours to form tetrahedra, diamonds have an exceptional range of applications. For example, the strength of the bonds means that they are highly resistant to abrasion and so can be used for sawing, grinding and polishing, while the high frequency of the atomic vibrations (from the combination of the atoms' lightness with the tight bonding) means that diamonds are very good conductors of heat, these vibrations being hardly stimulated by the heat wave as it passes through.

For those faced with the problem of determining residual stresses in workpieces nondestructively, a technique developed at the CEGB's Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories may be just the thing (CEGB Research July 1981 p3). The hole-drilling method, which uses the fact that the radial stress at the edge of a hole must be zero and so in general any hole will deform, was considered to be the best in terms of both the information it could give and the minimum of damage being caused.

The star SS433 is a cosmic physics laboratory testing special relativity and the Doppler effect, not to mention the theory of supernovae and black holes. It fulfils a speculation made by Doppler in 1842

A remarkable meeting 'La pensée physique en 1980' took place on 1–13 September 1980, led by Georges Lochak (Director of the Fondation Louis de Broglie) and Simon Diner. In these hectic times when most of us are involved in more and more specialisation, such a meeting afforded a welcome opportunity to think about the overall context of our efforts.

Ian Stewart and John Jaworski (eds) 1981 Nantwich: Shiva Publishing 94 pp price £5

Manifold used to be one of those strange little 'in' periodicals that appear and disappear and never really become known outside a small enthusiastic circle. (I say 'used to be' because it died in 1980, after 12 years of active life–though resurrection is in the air.)

Fabian Monds and Robert McLaughlin 1981 Stevenage: Peter Peregrinus vii + 133 pp price £9

I chose this book as someone whose laboratories abound in small computers, but who has not yet needed to have intimate relations with the machines themselves. The book is based on material used for courses at Queen's University of Belfast and for other courses sponsored by the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

E A Ash 1980 London: Academic 462 pp price £18.40

This book contains the collection of papers presented at the conference on scanned image microscopy held at the Royal Society, London, in September 1980. Under the common theme of scanning microscopy, the papers describe developments in acoustic, optical, photoacoustic and x-ray systems.

Kenneth Dibden and James Tomlinson (eds) 1981 Kent: Butterworth xiii + 166 pp price £8.50

Some careers advisers are full-time trained professionals; many are adequately trained teachers undertaking an onerous part-time duty; and a few still try to pull strings to get poor young X into a suitable bank. But all are bombarded with a plethora of acronym-spattered literature, much of it likely to be invalid after six months and harmful after a year.

Shoji Tanaka and Yutaka Toyozawa (eds) 1980 Japan: Physical Society of Japan 1317 pp price Yen24000

The hard-pressed reviewer cannot but feel relief that this series of conferences has not sustained exponential growth throughout its 15 steps. However it is the logistic problems of large conferences, and the hiving off of separate subdisciplines that have provided the restraints, rather than any lack of vitality.

H W Thim (ed) 1981 Bristol: The Institute of Physics xvi + 752 pp price £35 (IOP members' price £26.25)

The 84 separate papers published here were presented at the 8th international symposium on GaAs and related compounds held in Vienna in September 1980, with about twice that number of papers being submitted. At the first con ference in this series in 1966 the total number of papers was 32, which is an indication of the increasing scientific and commercial interest in n iii-v semiconductors.

Robert J Hurtubise 1981 New York: Marcel Dekker ix + 267 pp

This book is the first volume of a new series entitled Modern Monographs in Analytical Chemistry. It deals with the chemical analysis of compounds, mainly organic, by their photoluminescence when adsorbed on solid surfaces such as those of silica gel or filter paper.

Ivan Tolstoy 1981 Edinburgh: Canongate viii + 184 pp price £9.95 (IOP members' price £7.95)

Only two years ago a number of learned journals carried commemorative papers in the centenary year of Maxwell's death, and now it is time to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Apart from a short BBC radio portrait of Maxwell earlier this year, few papers have yet appeared and certainly nothing like J J Thomson's centenary volume of 1931.

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.