Table of contents

Professor Blin-Stoyle (Physics Bulletin November 1986 p445) puts forward the suggestion that university staff nearing retirement might consider undertaking school teaching for a few years. I should like to draw attention to some difficulties inherent in this suggestion.

I found the articles by K Boddy and H J Dunster on the fall-out from Chernobyl (Physics Bulletin August 1986 pp346–7) very interesting. However, both articles wrongly refer to the Chernobyl reactor being located in Russia.

Professor John Ashworth is reported (Physics Bulletin November 1986 p446) as arguing, during a discussion at the 1986 British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, that science spending is not as lacking as some maintain, that all scientists must accept smaller budgets, and that the solution is to train scientists to be better managers. I believe this to be a dangerously complacent diagnosis.

Grenville Needham asks who the other organisations are that routinely monitor radioactivity in the environment (Physics Bulletin December 1986 p480). One such organisation is London Scientific Services, formerly the Scientific Services Branch of the Greater London Council.

I have read a number of articles, letters and commentary on the problems of recruiting students into physics and mathematics courses. A common theme would seem to be the problem of adequately exciting young minds and evolving away from the 'gas laws, springs and galvanometers' syndrome.

The short article by P E Trier (Physics Bulletin November 1986 p456) is most unfortunate in many ways and, if fairly representative of the thinking at higher levels, indicates why the feeling persists that the UK does not achieve its due reward from the technical skills available. Four columns are devoted to the level of funding of R and D in various countries, but no evidence showed that the low UK figure is the cause of our poor industrial performance.

As one of the researchers involved in the development of the soft x-ray microscope described in the Physics in Action section of the December 1986 issue of Physics Bulletin (p488), I should like to correct, on behalf of my colleagues, some misconceptions and errors that occurred in the report. Firstly, the prototype microscope is not capable of imaging living specimens without destroying them; indeed, it is by no means certain that a future x-ray microscope will be able to do this, although the hope is that it will in favourable circumstances.

The motivation of Simeon Masmanian's letter (Physics Bulletin December 1986 p478) strikes me as eminently sensible, though I do not know if the notion of two physics syllabuses at A-level is a practical proposition for many schools which have some difficulty in attracting good physics teachers. However, he is absolutely right that the excitement and 'grandeur' of physics should in any case be conveyed at school.

We apologise for an error in the letter to the Editor from R V Hesketh in the July 1986 issue of Physics Bulletin (p280). The final sentence in the second paragraph should read 'I am reluctant to believe that this is the kind of initiative the Royal Society called for', not'... the meeting called for'.

The concept of nuclear winter may be 'a small perturbation in a large catastrophe' but it provides a strong argument for massive reduction of the world's nuclear arsenal to some minimum deterrent level, according to Professor Carl Sagan. Professor Sagan was speaking at a conference on nuclear winter organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and held at the Royal Institution last December.

A new government initiative to improve Britain's industrial performance was announced at the Department of Trade and Industry by Information Technology Minister Geoffrey Pattie and Higher Education Minister George Walden in December. Called the Link initiative, a total of £210m will be made available by the DTI over the next five years for funding collaborative projects between academic research and British industry.

The announcement – out of the blue – that the government is planning to set up 20 technology colleges in inner city areas has caused a considerable stir in the educational world. The proposal is that such colleges should have about 1000 pupils of age 11–18, and that there should be a closely defined curriculum giving an emphasis to science, technology and to understanding industry.

A prototype vertical-axis wind turbine was started up in November at Carmarthen Bay, South Wales, by the Department of Energy. The 25 m diameter rotors are capable of generating 130 kW and the machine will be tested by the Energy Technology Support Unit at Harwell over a period of two years as a step towards multi-megawatt offshore machines.

A one:day colour symposium was held at Imperial College in November to celebrate the 80th birthday of Professor W D (David) Wright, the doyen of British colour science. Professor Wright held the chair of applied optics at Imperial College from 1951 to 1973, but he was well known before then as a researcher, teacher and writer.

Two Institute of Physics journals have new Honorary Editors in harness from January 1987 until December 1991. Professor Barry Jennings of the University of Reading Physics Department takes over the hot seat on the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics from Professor John Lewis (University College of North Wales).

The nearest we get to a physics industry is the category variously described as electronics, computers and information technology, according to GEC joint deputy managing director (technical) Derek Roberts. At The Institute of Physics Solid State Physics conference at Imperial College in December, Dr Roberts illustrated his talk 'The physics industry – or tunnelling for profit' with many graphs and diagrams, drawing analogies between electron tunnelling and the route from invention to markets, and between current-voltage and sales-time graphs (see figure).

Coherence comes as no surprise to those Who trace our journeys from a single source; But, restless and unswerving, when we chose To think our path uniquely straight, our course Ruled by inexorable law, we rushed (Since sympathetic hearts were parallel In each emotion's rise and fall) and pushed Through bars just far enough apart.

An abrasive jet of water and crushed flint has been used to cut through a 9 inch (23 cm) block of solid steel at the Welding Institute in Cambridge. The record-breaking cut was achieved by adding a continuous stream of 0.4–1.4 mm flint particles to an ultrahigh pressure water jet (right).

A fractured bone has a lower resonant frequency than an unfractured bone, because the area around the fracture is less rigid. This principle has been used by a team in the Medical Electronics Laboratory at the University of Kent to develop a technique for bone fracture assessment.

On board the Astro-C satellite, scheduled for launch this month on the Japanese Mu 352 rocket, will be the largest x-ray detector ever built, supplied by a team from the University of Leicester and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Astro-C, which was undergoing tests at the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in Tokyo at the time Physics Bulletin went to press, carries three experiments.

J T Jardine of Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh, has been awarded the Bragg Medal and Prize for his many contributions to the teaching of physics in schools, through his books, development of apparatus and the training of teachers. Jim Jardine was born in 1923 and educated at Hawick High School and Edinburgh University, graduating in physics in 1951.

Institute of Physics members will know that for several years the Education Department at Headquarters has been publicising the results of its research into the shortage of physics teachers (for example, through Shortage of Physics Teachers 1981). During the last 18 months half a dozen Institute Groups and Committees have been gathering and analysing data on the numbers of physics teachers entering and leaving the profession, in the context of the present and future needs of our secondary schools.

It has come to our notice (for example Warren, 1976) that there is quite widespread misunderstanding about the interpretation of Einstein's famous equation E = mc². It seems that this is often regarded as something rather like a monetary rate of exchange, such as £1.00 = $1.45, and that mass and energy are thought to be interconvertible, each to the other.

Interest in solid state physics has grown tremendously over the last 50 years and the study of the history of the subject is important. This article is an abridged version of the introductory chapter of the book Solid State Science: Past, Present and Predicted, edited by Denis Weaire and Colin Windsor, to be published soon by Adam Hilger

Important results have been obtained from research undertaken in the hostile conditions of the Antarctic. In this article Dr Rycroft examines the fields of study concerned

Stig Lundqvist (ed) 1985 Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 219 pp price $72

This book forms the proceedings of a Nobel symposium which focused on a few selected topics in the physics of chaos. It provides a rich source of material on both the experimental and theoretical aspects of chaos, with some very detailed and some more general papers.

John D Barrow and Frank J Tipler 1986 Oxford: Oxford University Press xx + 706 pp price £25 ISBN 0 19 851949 4

Most ancient philosophies and theologies viewed mankind as the central element in the cosmos, the ultimate reason for its existence. This world outlook was profoundly challenged following the rise of modern science.

Patrick Moore 1986 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press price £11.95 ISBN 0 521 30756 2

This is a very practical guide, explaining clearly what may be observed with binoculars in the sky at night. The author has carried out 'a personal survey of the whole sky' using various binoculars and the book is centred on an individual description of each constellation – chapter seven (of 12) forms half the book!

G F Weston 1985 Sevenoaks: Butterworths 288 pp price £42 ISBN 0 408 01485 7

The increasing use of ultra-high vacuum techniques has created a need for a book which combines a description of the basic scientific and engineering principles with the provision of practical information and carefully selected data on the properties of the equipment and materials in UHV systems. This book is clearly based on vast practical experience and it uses the close links between fundamental physics and UHV practice to provide comprehensive and easily understandable descriptions of the operating principles of all those components of practical systems currently employed.

T Matsubara and A Kotani (eds) 1984 Berlin: Springer xii + 211 pp price DM65 ISBN 3 540 13324 0

Most metals are either magnetic or superconducting, but not both, in their ground state. This can be easily understood in terms of the conventional theory of singlet Cooper pairs and itinerant magnetism.

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.