Physics World

Physics World

Editor	Matin Durrani
Categories	Science
Frequency	monthly
Circulation	50,000 (2013)
First issue	1988
Company	IOP Publishing Ltd
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Website	physicsworld.com
ISSN	0953-8585

Physics World is the membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in research, industry, physics outreach, and education worldwide.

Overview

The magazine was launched in 1988 by IOP Publishing Ltd, under the founding editorship of Philip Campbell. The magazine is sent free to members of the Institute of Physics, who can access a digital edition of the magazine; selected articles can be read by anyone for free online. It was redesigned in September 2005 and has an audited circulation of just under 35000.

The current editor is Matin Durrani.^[1] Others on the team are Michael Banks (news editor), Louise Mayor (features editor), Margaret Harris (industry editor) and Tushna Commissariat (reviews and careers editor). Hamish Johnston is the editor of the magazine's website physicsworld.com. James Dacey is multimedia projects editor.

Alongside the print and online magazine, Physics World produces films and two podcasts. ^[2] The Physics World Stories podcast ^[3] is hosted by Andrew Glester ^[4] and is produced monthly. The Physics World Weekly podcast is hosted by James Dacey^[5].

Breakthrough of the Year

The magazine makes two awards each year. These are the Physics World Breakthrough of the Year and the Physics World Book of the Year, which have both been awarded annually since 2009.

Top 10 works and winners of the Breakthrough of the Year

2009: "to August Jonathan Home and colleagues at NIST for unveiled the first small-scale device that could be described as a complete "quantum computer"

• Top results from Tevatron
• Spins spotted in room-temperature silicon
• Graphane makes its debut
• Magnetic monopoles spotted in spin ices
• Water on the Moon
• Atoms teleport information over long distance
• Black-hole analogue traps sound
• Dark matter spotted in Minnesota
• A 2.36 TeV big bang at the LHC

2010: "to ALPHA and the ASACUSA group at CERN for have created new ways of controlling antiatoms of hydrogen"

• Exoplanet atmosphere laid bare
• Quantum effects seen in a visible object
• Visible-light cloaking of large objects
• Hail the first sound lasers
• A Bose–Einstein condensate from light
• Relativity with a human touch
• Towards a Star Wars telepresence
• Proton is smaller than we thought
• CERN achieves landmark collisions

2011: Aephraim Steinberg and colleagues from the University of Toronto in Canada for using the technique of "weak measurement" to track the average paths of single photons passing through a Young's double-slit experiment.^[6]

• Measuring the wavefunction
• Cloaking in space and time
• Measuring the universe using black holes
• Turning darkness into light
• Taking the temperature of the early universe
• Catching the flavour of a neutrino oscillation
• Living laser brought to life
• Complete quantum computer made on a single chip
• Seeing pure relics from the Big Bang

2012: "to the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN for their joint discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the Large Hadron Collider".^[7]

• Majorana fermions
• Time-reversal violation
• Galaxy-cluster motion
• Peering through opaque materials
• Room-temperature maser
• Wiping data will cost you energy
• Entangling twisted beams
• Neutrino-based communication
• Generating and storing energy in one step

2013: "the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory for making the first observations of high-energy cosmic neutrinos".^[8]

• Nuclear physics goes pear-shaped
• Creating 'molecules' of light
• Planck reveals 'almost perfect' universe
• Quantum microscope' peers into the hydrogen atom
• Quantum state endures for 39 minutes at room temperature
• The first carbon-nanotube computer
• B-mode polarization spotted in cosmic microwave background
• The first laser-cooled Bose–Einstein condensate
• Hofstadter's butterfly spotted in graphene

2014: "to the landing by the European Space Agency of the Philae (spacecraft) on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko", which was the first time a probe had been landed on a comet^[9]

• Quasar shines a bright light on cosmic web
• Neutrinos spotted from Sun's main nuclear reaction
• Laser fusion passes milestone
• Electrons' magnetic interactions isolated at long last
• Disorder sharpens optical-fibre images
• Data stored in magnetic holograms
• Lasers ignite 'supernovae' in the lab
• Quantum data are compressed for the first time
• Physicists sound-out acoustic tractor beam

2015: "for being the first to achieve the simultaneous quantum teleportation of two inherent properties of a fundamental particle – the photon".^[10]

• Cyclotron radiation from a single electron is measured for the first time
• Weyl fermions are spotted at long last
• Physicists claim 'loophole-free' Bell-violation experiment
• First visible light detected directly from an exoplanet
• LHCb claims discovery of two pentaquarks
• Hydrogen sulphide is warmest ever superconductor at 203 K
• Portable 'battlefield MRI' comes out of the lab
• Fermionic microscope sees first light
• Silicon quantum logic gate is a first

2016: "to LIGO's gravitational wave discovery".^[11]

• Schrödinger's cat lives and dies in two boxes at once
• Elusive nuclear-clock transition spotted in thorium-229
• New gravimeter-on-a-chip is tiny yet extremely sensitive
• Negative refraction of electrons spotted in graphene
• Rocky planet found in habitable zone around Sun's nearest neighbour
• Physicists take entanglement beyond identical ions
• 'Radical' new microscope lens combines high resolution with large field of view
• Quantum computer simulates fundamental particle interactions for the first time
• The single-atom engine that could

2017:"to First multimessenger observation of a neutron-star merger".^[12]

• Physicists create first ‘topological’ laser
• Lightning makes radioactive isotopes
• Super-resolution microscope combines Nobel-winning technologies
• Particle-free quantum communication is achieved in the lab
• Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays have extra-galactic origins
• ‘Time crystals’ built in the lab
• Metamaterial enhances natural cooling without power input
• Three-photon interference measured at long last
• Muons reveal hidden void in Egyptian pyramid

Book of the Year

Top 10 books and the Book of the Year winner

A blue ribbon () appears against the winner.

2009: The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo

• The Physics of Rugby by Trevor Davis (Nottingham University Press)
• First Principles: The Crazy Business of Doing Serious Science by Howard Burton (Key Porter Books)
• Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity by Basil Mahon (Institute of Engineering and Technology)
• Atomic: The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb by Jim Baggott (Icon Books)
• Lives in Science by Joseph C Hermanowicz (University of Chicago Press)
• 13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks (Profile Books)
• Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung by Arthur I Miller (W W Norton)
• Perfect Rigor by Masha Gessen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World by Eugenie Samuel Reich (Palgrave Macmillan)

2010: The Edge of Physics: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Cosmology by Anil Ananthaswamy

• The Tunguska Mystery by Vladimir Rubtsov (Springer)
• Coming Climate Crisis? Consider the Past, Beware the Big Fix by Claire L Parkinson (Rowman & Littlefield)
• How It Ends by Chris Impey (W W Norton)
• Lake Views: This World and the Universe by Steven Weinberg (Harvard University Press)
• The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It by Scott Patterson (Crown Business)
• Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson (Faber and Faber)
• Packing for Mars by Mary Roach (One World Publications/ W W Norton)
• Massive: The Hunt for the God Particle by Ian Sample (Virgin Books/Basic Books)
• How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog by Chad Orzel

2011: Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science by Lawrence Krauss from Case Western Reserve University^[13]

• Engineering Animals Mark Denny and Alan McFadzean
• Measure of the Earth: the Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped the World Larrie Ferreiro
• The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos Brian Greene
• Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema David Kirby
• Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science Lawrence Krauss
• Rising Force: the Magic of Magnetic Levitation James Livingston
• Modernist Cuisine Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet
• The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality Richard Panek
• Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout Lauren Redniss
• Hindsight and Popular Astronomy Alan Whiting

2012: How the Hippies Saved Physics by David Kaiser from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology^[14]

• A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher Joel Achenbach
• The Science Magpie: A Hoard of Fascinating Facts Simon Flynn
• The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation Jon Gertner
• Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution John Gribbin
• The Geek Manifesto: Why Science Matters Mark Henderson
• Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos Peter M Hoffmann
• How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture and the Quantum Revival David Kaiser
• How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog Chad Orzel
• Pricing the Future: Finance, Physics and the 300-Year Journey to the Black–Scholes Equation by George Szpiro
• Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything Margaret Wertheim

2013: Physics in Mind: a Quantum View of the Brain by the biophysicist Werner Loewenstein^[15]

• The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body Frances Ashcroft
• The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads us to the Edge of a New World Sean Carroll
• Hans Christian Ørsted: Reading Nature's Mind Dan Charly Christensen
• Churchill's Bomb: a Hidden History of Science, War and Politics Graham Farmelo
• Physics in Mind: a Quantum View of the Brain Werner Loewenstein
• J Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center Ray Monk
• The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets Simon Singh
• Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe Lee Smolin
• The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
• Weird Life: the Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own David Toomey

2014: Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape our Man-made World - Mark Miodownik

• Wizards, Aliens & Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction - Charles Adler
• Serving the Reich: the Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitler - Philip Ball
• Five Billion Years of Solitude: the Search for Life Among the Stars - Lee Billings
• Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters - Kate Brown
• Smashing Physics: Inside the World’s Biggest Experiment - Jon Butterworth
• Sonic Wonderland: a Scientific Odyssey of Sound - Trevor Cox
• The Perfect Theory: a Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity - Pedro G Ferreira
• Stuff Matters: the Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World - Mark Miodownik
• Einstein and the Quantum: the Quest of the Valiant Swabian - Douglas Stone
• Island on Fire: the Extraordinary Story of Laki, the Volcano that Turned Eighteenth-century Europe - Dark Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe

2015: Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: a Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing and the Beginning of Everything - Amanda Gefter

• Life on the Edge: the Coming of Age of Quantum Biology - Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden
• Physics on Your Feet: Ninety Minutes of Shame but a PhD for the Rest of Your Life - Dmitry Budker and Alexander Sushkov
• Half-Life: the Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy - Frank Close
• Beyond: Our Future in Space - Chris Impey
• The Water Book: the Extraordinary Story of Our Most Ordinary Substance - Alok Jha
• Monsters: the Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology - Ed Regis
• Tunnel Visions: the Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider - Michael Riordan, Lillian Hoddeson, Adrienne Kolb
• The Copernicus Complex: the Quest for our Cosmic (In)Significance - Caleb Scharf
• Atoms Under the Floorboards: the Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home - Chris Woodford

2016: Why String Theory? - Joseph Conlon

• The Jazz of Physics: the Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe - Stephon Alexander
• Storm in a Teacup: the Physics of Everyday Life - Helen Czerski
• Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex - Michael Hiltzik
• Strange Glow: the Story of Radiation - Timothy Jorgensen
• Cosmos: the Infographic Book of Space - Stuart Lowe and Chris North
• Spooky Action at a Distance: the Phenomenon that Reimagines Space and Time - George Musser
• Goldilocks and the Water Bears: the Search for Life in the Universe - Louisa Preston
• Reality Is Not What It Seems: the Journey to Quantum Gravity - Carlo Rovelli
• The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age - Gino Segrè and Bettina Hoerlin

Pictures of the Year

Top 10 Favourite Pictures of the Year

2015:

• New Horizons uncovers Pluto's icy secrets
• Lasers reveal previously unseen fossil details
• Clap your eyes on the first 'images' of thunder
• Could lasers guide and control the path of lightning?
• Gravitational lensing creates 'Einstein's cross' of distant supernova
• Revealing the secret strength of a sea sponge
• Satellite sensor unexpectedly detects waves in upper atmosphere
• Balloon bursts approach the speed of sound
• Imaging the polarity of individual chemical bonds
• Organic microflowers bloom bright

References

External links

• Official website
• Physics World on YouTube