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Physics World Digest: March 2002 edition

March 01, 2002

Special issue: women in physics
When the astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell was a physics student at Glasgow in the 1960s, she was greeted by a barrage of wolf whistles and foot stamping every time she walked into the lecture theatre. Bell Burnell was, quite simply, the only woman in a class of 50 students. Although it is a tale that few young female physicists would recognize today, women in physics are still vastly outnumbered by men and face discrimination of a subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle kind. To coincide with the first ever international conference on women in physics that is being held in Paris this month, this special issue of Physics World examines the problems and challenges faced by female physicists.

- Physics World asks some of the world`s leading female physicists how more women can be encouraged to become physicists. As Catherine Cesarsky, director-general of the European Southern Observatory says, "People in our profession work such long hours [so] it is much better to be with people of both sexes."(p. 29)
- Physics World goes back to school to find what girls really think about the subject. (p. 35)
- Katharine Gebbie, director of a leading US physics laboratory, says that the best way to get more women into physics is to ensure that more of them reach positions of leadership. (p. 17)
- Gillian Gehring, head of physics at Sheffield University, argues that it is perfectly possible for a woman to be a good physicist and raise a family - but that it should be made easier for more women to mix science and motherhood. (p. 18)

Contact: Women in physics conference web site: www.if.ufrgs.br/~barbosa/conference.html
Contact: Katharine Gebbie, Physics Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Maryland, US (tel. +1 301 975 4201; fax +1 301 975 3038; e-mail katharine.gebbie@nist.gov)
Contact: Gillian Gehring, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sheffield University, UK (tel. +44 (0)114 272 4299; fax +44 (0)144 272 8079; e-mail g.gehring@sheffield.ac.uk)

Black skis are white idea
Professional skiers usually wax the base of their skis to reduce the frictional, anti-static effects that might slow them down. Now an American physicist says that using skis with black bases could, in some cases, be a better idea. He believes that they absorb more energy than white skis, thereby helping to generate the thin film of water beneath a ski that is essential to allow you to ski. (p. 12)
Contact: Sam Colbeck, Lyme, New Hampshire, US (tel. +1 603 795 2653; e-mail scolbeck@tpk.net)

Probably the best experiment ever
Many people like a drink at the end of the day to help them forget about work, and physicists are no exception. But one particle physicist has now turned this custom on its head - and is using the disappearance of the frothy head on a glass of lager to teach students how to analyse experimental data. Arnd Leike from Ludwig Maximillians University in Germany found that the height of the head decreases exponentially. Leike, who drank the beer afterwards, says he did the experiments because he felt students don`t understand how to check data with theory. (p. 5)
Contact: Arnd Leike, Ludwig Maximillians University, Munich, Germany (tel. +49 89 2180 4241; fax +49 89 2180 4031; e-mail leike@theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de)

Meet the masters of the universe
One of the biggest goals in theoretical physics is to unite general relativity - Einstein`s theory of gravity - with quantum mechanics, which describes how atoms and molecules behave. Physics World talks to two physicists at the forefront of that struggle. First up is Ed Witten, widely regarded as the world`s brainiest physicist. Nicknamed "the pope", he is one of the pioneers of "superstring theory", in which the four dimensions of everyday life (length, breadth, height and time) are replaced by 10 or 11 dimensions, and point-like particles are replaced by tiny loops of string or objects known as "branes". Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, meanwhile, thinks that the only way of proving these esoteric ideas is to test them experimentally. He is currently suggesting how two other rival theories of quantum gravity - string theory and loop quantum gravity - can be checked with measurements from astrophysics. (p. 8 & 9)
Contact: Ed Witten, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, US (e-mail witten@ias.edu)
Contact: Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy (tel. +39-06-4991-4286; fax + 39 06 495 7697; e-mail amelino@roma1.infn.it and giovanni.amelino-camelia@cern.ch)

The world`s best laser?
What do you get if you cross light with matter? It`s a question that fascinates physicists working on "semiconductor microcavities", who have created a new type of laser that can amplify light more than any other known material. As Jeremy Baumberg explains, its amazing properties are due to particles called "polaritons", which are a cross between a photon of light and an exciton - a hybrid particle consisting of an electron and a "hole". These new polariton lasers, which are attracting the attention of firms like Hitachi and Toshiba, could be used as ultra-efficient light emitters in optoelectronics and telecommunications. (p. 27)
Contact: Jeremy Baumberg, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Southampton University, UK (tel. +44 (0)23 8059 3911/2094; fax +44 (0)23 8059 3910; e-mail j.j.baumberg@soton.ac.uk)

Also in this issue:
Dispute follows rare-decay claim (p. 5); The energy-saving quantum afterburner (p. 6); Letters reveal war-time mysteries (p. 7); Cartoonist draws in people (Pp. 10); Astronomy enters age of virtual reality (p. 13); A new golden age of astronomy (p. 23); Cold positrons support the annihilation theory (p. 24); Protein folding and the secret of life (p. 26); Quantum dots break new ground (p. 27); Physics and forensics (p. 43)

Institute of Physics