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Quanta 3
UK Meteorological Office/Science Photo Library
Frontiers 4
News & Analysis 6
New proposal to detect gravitational waves ● World’s quietest building opens
● CERN boss targets future accelerator ● China’s first space-based science mission
delayed ● Panel reviews NASA’s Moon and Mars plans ● Indian lunar mission fails
● Teething troubles at US energy agency ● Spain powers ahead in solar-thermal
energy ● Germany seeks to boost university research ● Bribe allegations rock German
science ● New telescope array to shed light on early universe ● Australia launches
astronomy centre ● Survey reveals risk of medical scans
Publicize or perish 22
With the Copenhagen climate-change conference looming, Joseph Romm warns
that scientists must do a much better job of alerting the world to the dangers of
global warming
physicsworld.com
Quanta
For the record Seen and heard
To boldly go where no-one has gone
Rijksmuseum
before does not require coming bubble would burst, Sornette went on to
make the bold prediction that the index
home again would crash between 17–27 July. So did
Lawrence Krauss, director of the Origins traders flock to take money out of the
Initiative at Arizona State University, quoted in the exchange? Well, on 28 July the index stood
New York Times at 3438 points before climbing slightly to
Krauss was proposing the idea of a one-way ticket 3471 on 4 August. But by 31 August it had
to Mars without the need to bring astronauts back tumbled to 2667 points – a fall of more
to Earth. than 20%. As Physics World went to press,
the index had recovered somewhat and
My expectation was that researchers was nearing 3000. Green shoots of
recovery, perhaps?
would propose risky ideas that were
completely new. Disappointingly, we Wood you believe it? Bolt out of the blue
got rather little of that “With the compliments of the Few would doubt that Jamaican sprinter
Ambassador of the United States Of Usain Bolt is now the fastest man on the
Outgoing president of the International America, J. William Middendorf II, to planet after yet again breaking the world
Astronomical Union Catherine Cesarsky quoted commemorate the visit to the Netherlands record for the 100 m sprint at the World
in Science of the Apollo 11 astronauts.” So reads a Athletics Championships held in Berlin in
Cesarsky, who was director-general of the plaque below one of the Rijksmuseum’s August. But, of course, we all knew that he
European Southern Observatory from 1999 to most prized possessions – a small sample could run that fast. After his previous
2007, says that she tried to encourage innovative of Moon rock that was acquired by the record-setting time of 9.69 s at the Beijing
projects under the director’s discretionary Amsterdam-based museum in 1988 after Olympics last year, astrophysicists at the
time-allocation programme, but most of the the death of former Dutch prime minister University of Oslo in Norway worked out
resources were instead used to get quick results Willem Drees. The brown-coloured rock that Bolt could have run even faster if he
and publications. was a gift to Dress from Middendorf, who had gone flat out rather than slowing down
apparently received it via the US State in the last 20 m of the race to celebrate his
The first thing a freshman should Department. Yet tests carried out recently Olympic win. And they got it pretty much
on behalf of the museum have revealed spot on. The physicists calculated that Bolt
know is that college is never what that the “rock” is in fact nothing more than could have covered the 100 m in 9.55 s
one expects a piece of petrified wood. Geologist (±0.04 s) if he had maintained his
Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg quoted in the Frank Beunk from Vriije University in pre-celebration acceleration. The time he
New York Times Amsterdam took a slice of the object with clocked in Berlin? 9.58 s exactly. “The
Weinberg was talking about his time at Cornell permission of the museum and, using a agreement could almost not have been
University, where he graduated in 1954. Although scanning electron microscope, found that better,” says Hans Kristian Kamfjord
he says he found it difficult at first, he was left with it was entirely composed of quartz, which Eriksen from the University of Oslo.
memories of inspiring professors and a love of is abundant on Earth but not present on
music and Shakespeare. the Moon. “It may have originated from Space, not-so-rockin
the Petrified Forest National Park in “To my ear all these songs
While my body was sleeping, I think Arizona,” Beunk told Physics World. are universally awful”
Despite the mundane origin of the “rock”, was the response of
my spirit flew on a triangular-shaped which was last shown to the public in 2006 astronomer Sir Patrick
UFO to Venus. It was an extremely at the museum’s “Fly Me to the Moon” Moore in an interview
beautiful place and was very green exhibition, the museum is still planning with TheQuietus.com – a
to keep the piece. But if you see it, don’t rock music and pop-culture website – when
Miyuki Hatoyama, actress and wife of Japan’s be fooled. forced to listen to 10 songs with either a
newly elected prime minister Yukio Hatoyama cosmic or scientific theme. So what did he
Hatoyama wrote about her surreal space trip in a Bubble trouble think of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”?
book published last year entitled Most Bizarre You do not usually get stock-market “I wonder if any of these people could sing,
Things I’ve Encountered. commentators predicting exactly to the even if someone showed them how to do
day when a stock or index will crash or it.” And what of Muse’s “Supermassive
Perhaps astrophysics stories should depreciate heavily in value. In early July, Black Hole”? “Dreadful.” As for the rather
however, Didier Sornette of the more mainstream “No Matter What Sign
come with a health warning Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in You Are” by Diana Ross & the Supremes, it
Journalist Charlie Brooker quoted in the Guardian Zurich and colleagues predicted that did not impress Moore either. “All these
Brooker was commenting on a BBC story last China’s Shanghai Composite Index on the songs are nasty noises.” Maybe the
month about the discovery that Andromeda is Shanghai stock exchange would collapse as interviewer should have got the hint with
expanding by digesting stars from other galaxies. it was showing “bubble-like” behaviour by the first song played to Moore – “Out of
He says the human brain is not equipped to deal growing faster than an exponential rate Space” by hardcore rave outfit The Prodigy.
with thoughts of this “humbling enormity”. (arXiv:0907.1827). But rather than just “I must be quite honest with you, this isn’t
saying that at some point in the future the my type of music,” he complained.
physicsworld.com
Frontiers
In brief
Lasers probe teeth for minerals
Molecules revealed in their full glory
ical structure of a single molecule. The main
Innovation
Birds inspire new
ultra-strong fastener
Now found in all manner of places from clothing to
industry, Velcro was invented in the 1940s by
Swiss inventor George de Mestral, who drew
inspiration from the difficulty he experienced
removing burrs from the fur of his dog. De Mestral
named his product Velcro from the French for
velvet (velours) and hook (crochet) on account of
its underlying mechanism – a piece of fabric
covered in tiny hooks fastening to a second piece
of fabric covered in tiny hairy loops.
The real beauty of this “wonder material”, writes
James Dacey, is that it can seal with a relatively
tight grip but still be released with minimal effort.
However, the drawback with these fasteners is that
Galactic tussle will engulf Milky Way their gripping mechanism tends to break down
when exposed to high temperatures, aggressive
An international team of astrophysicists has mapped the borders between two of our neighbouring galaxies cleaning chemicals, and harsh conditions.
to reveal an ongoing galactic jostle that will eventually result in the formation of one super-galaxy Now, a team at the Technical University of
incorporating the Milky Way. The finding has been made by Alan McConnachie of the Herzberg Institute of Munich led by Josef Mair, working with industrial
Astrophysics in Canada, together with colleagues in Australia, Europe and the US. Using the Canada- firms based in Germany, may have created a
France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) in Hawaii, the researchers carried out the most extensive survey to date of product that overcomes this problem. “Metaklett”,
Andromeda – the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way – mapping stars over an area more than 100 times or “metal burr”, is a hook-and-loop fastener made
larger than its well-photographed central disc. Next, the researchers turned their attention to one of using steel, which is chosen for its high resistance
Andromeda’s smaller satellites, Triangulum – a densely packed galaxy about one-tenth the size of its spiral to mechanical loads and chemical corrosion. The
neighbour. What they observed was an extended, stream-like structure protruding from Triangulum in the product is being developed with two separate hook
direction of Andromeda. Using computer simulations (see image), the researchers have estimated that the designs, both of which are resistant to chemicals
limb of stars was “ripped” from Triangulum roughly two billion years ago when the galaxies passed within and remain fastened in temperatures of up to
100 000 light-years of each other. The simulations predict that the next time that the two galaxies come 800°C, the researchers claim.
into close contact, within the next two billion years, Triangulum will be completely engulfed by its larger The first hook mechanism is based on the
neighbour. What is more, by the time Triangulum approaches Andromeda again, the Milky Way and shape of a flamingo, and it has been chosen for its
Andromeda will have moved much closer together, which will probably result in a three-way merger and the strength. Depending on the direction of the
formation of a new, larger galaxy (Nature 461 66). applied force, the fastener can withstand loads of
up to 35 tonnes per square metre. The second
Acoustic tweezers pinch living cells type of hook, which resembles a “duck’s head”,
cannot support the same loads as the flamingo,
but it is more flexible because it can remain
Optical tweezers are a useful device for ers, the researchers arranged a series of fastened while subjected to stresses from a
manipulating tiny objects using the mo- fluorescent polystyrene beads about 1.9 µm variety of directions. Mair and his team are now
mentum of light. Now, physicists can also in diameter into a grid pattern. They then did working on a third design – the “hybrid” model –
add another set of tweezers to their toolkit – the same thing using the red blood cells of a which combines the strength of the flamingo with
“acoustic tweezers” that can manoeuvre cow and the bacteria E. coli. the flexibility of the duck.
microscopic objects using sound. The researchers say that the new device The researchers have also been collaborating
The new device was developed by re- offers several advantages over optical tweez- with their industrial partners to create bespoke
searchers at Pennsylvania State University ers. One is that the acoustic tweezers can be metal fasteners for a range of applications. “I can
by combining two surface acoustic waves used to manipulate living cells without dam- imagine Metaklett being used in hospitals – for
(SAWs) on a chip. When a microscopic ob- aging or killing them. Another potential ad- example as a means of fastening curtains that
ject is placed in the resulting standing wave, vantage, according to the researchers, is that does not get damaged when exposed to hospital
it moves along a pressure gradient until it the tweezers could cost just $20 per set, com- cleaning,” says Mair. He also told Physics World
reaches a node – that is, a point where the pared with $100 000 for optical tweezers. that he can envisage his new metal fastener being
two waves cancel – when the object then The hope is that the optical tweezers can used both as a shield covering car exhaust pipes
comes to a complete standstill. By combining be integrated into a single chip that can per- and as a means of holding panels together in
several standing waves along the surface of form individual or multiple functions in a planes. “A car parked in direct sunlight can reach
the piezoelectric chip, the researchers say so-called lab-on-a-chip. Such a device could temperatures of 80°C, while temperatures of
they can manoeuvre tiny objects by varying be used for medical applications, including several hundred degrees can arise around the
the frequency of the sound. blood analysis, cell studies and tissue engin- exhaust manifold,” he said.
To demonstrate their new acoustic tweez- eering (Lab on a Chip 10.1039/b910595f).
physicsworld.com
NRAO
plans to detect very low-frequency well as developing advanced software
gravitational waves – ripples in the to process the huge amounts of data
fabric of space–time that general re- involved. It estimates this would cost
lativity predicts ought to pervade the a few tens of millions of dollars over
universe. But rather than looking for the next 10 years, in addition to the
them using existing facilities like the money spent by their European and
LIGO detectors in the US, which are Australian collaborators.
designed to detect tiny changes in the This is small fry compared with the
interference patterns of laser beams hundreds of millions of dollars being
sent down pairs of kilometre-long spent on gravitational-wave interfer-
pipes positioned at right angles to one ometers. Indeed, NANOGrav mem-
another, the idea is instead to use ber Fredrick Jenet of the University
radio telescopes on Earth. The tele- of Texas at Brownsville says it is possi-
scopes would measure tiny variations ble that the pulsar network could de-
in the output of pulsars spread thou- tect gravitational waves before the
sands of light-years apart. interferometers, although he points
The galactic observatory, proposed not been technically feasible until Listening in out that having different approaches
by the North American Nanohertz now. The NANOGrav team says that The Green Bank not only expands the astrophysics that
Observatory for Gravitational Waves it should be possible to correlate the Telescope in West can be studied, but also improves the
(NANOGrav), would rely on minute output of 40 pulsars, each with a ti- Virginia, US, could be chances of detecting gravitational
changes in the relative timing of emis- ming precision better than 100 ns, used to study the waves in the first place.
sions from different pulsars – rapidly within the next decade. This would emissions of pulsars Jim Hough, a gravitational-wave
rotating neutron stars that emit very allow astronomers to observe gravita- to detect signs of researcher at the University of Glas-
regular pulses of radio waves. A gra- tional waves with wavelengths of sev- gravitational waves. gow and a member of the GEO-600
vitational wave passing between a eral light-years coming from sources gravitational-wave observatory based
pulsar and a radio telescope affects such as the black-hole binaries that in Germany, says that pulsar timing
the time it takes for the emissions to form when galaxies merge, as well as “looks a very good way” to search for
arrive, and so an array of pulsars with early-universe phenomena such as gravitational waves at extremely low
different lines of sight to the Earth cosmic strings or inflation. frequencies. He believes that by ob-
would reveal the presence of any wave The NANOGrav consortium says serving 20 pulsars with a timing pre-
as well as its direction of propagation that this could be achieved by ex- cision of better than 100 ns for five
and polarization. panding the time currently devoted to years, Jenet and colleagues “have a
This idea was first put forward in pulsar observations on existing facil- very good possibility of observing
the late 1970s but requires such high- ities such as the Arecibo Observatory gravitational-wave signals”.
precision measurements that it has in Puerto Rico and the Green Bank Edwin Cartlidge
Facilities
The University of Bristol in the UK ground under the building consists of measurements. Each lab in the base-
has opened what it claims is the solid rock. Engineers excavated a one- ment also sits inside a Faraday cage,
quietest building in the world. The storey deep hole in the rock and filled and the temperature, air flow and
£11.5m Bristol Centre for Nano- it with concrete to make a solid foun- acoustic noise in the room can also be
science and Quantum Information dation upon which the building was strictly controlled.
(NSQI) will be a hub of interdisci- constructed. “The centre is the right The centre incorporates two clean-
plinary research involving groups from building, in the right place,” says Fred rooms, a wet lab, a sound-proof lab,
the university’s biology, physics, chem- Hale, building manager of the NSQI. eight low-noise labs and two cell-cul-
istry and engineering departments. The four-storey building has a ture labs. The NSQI is also home to
Staff will use the new facility for a number of “quiet rooms” in the base- one of the UK’s newly launched doc-
range of experiments in condensed- Quiet, please! ment, where most of the experiments toral training centres. Funded by the
matter physics to biochemistry. The Bristol Centre for are housed. Each experiment sits on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Construction of the NSQI facility Nanoscience and an additional 24 tonne block of con- Research Council, the centre for func-
has taken over two years to complete Quantum Information crete separated from the floor by tional nanomaterials will train up to
and the site in Bristol is well suited to features eight rubber bearings to dampen vibrations 10 PhD students every year.
hosting such a “quiet” lab since the low-noise labs. that could interfere with sensitive Michael Banks
Particle physics
CERN
the next big experiment in particle Heuer also confirmed the timetable
physics after the Large Hadron Col- for switching the LHC back on fol-
lider (LHC) to be built at the Geneva lowing the electrical fault that oc-
lab. Speaking in an exclusive video curred on 19 September last year and
interview with Physics World, Rolf- led to 53 magnets having to be re-
Dieter Heuer says that CERN should paired or replaced (Physics World
host the experiment, which would September p7). Beams will be in-
collide electrons and positrons in a jected into the 27 km circumference
linear accelerator. Although a design circular accelerator in mid-Novem-
for the machine has not been finalized ber, with collisions taking place a few
by the international particle-physics weeks later. “I am pretty confident
community, Heuer is keen to bring that we will have the first collisions
the collider to CERN. this year,” says the CERN boss.
“I would be a bad director-general CERN engineers will begin by col-
if I did not push for CERN at least liding protons at an energy of 450 GeV
bidding for the next global project,” per beam, before attempting collisions
Heuer told Physics World. “CERN is Planning ahead US have already helped to build the at 3.5 TeV per beam. “We will stay [at
a fantastic place. [It] has proven that CERN boss Rolf- LHC and its detectors, and Heuer is that energy] for several months, de-
it can host such a project and there- Dieter Heuer hopes keen for links with non-European pending on what experiments find and
fore I think CERN should do it.” to land the next nations to become more permanent. on running experience,” says Heuer.
However, Heuer is aware that it is far big experiment in “Why not involve some of the na- “Then in the course of the next year we
from certain that the Geneva lab will particle physics – tions from the Americas or Asia as will go up to 10 TeV in the centre of
host the facility – Fermilab in the US an electron–positron members [of CERN]?” he asks. “This mass [i.e. 5 TeV per beam].” The LHC
is likely to be a contender – and the linear collider – for would enable us to start the next will be kept online until the end of
CERN chief is looking forward to bids the lab. global project as a global project from 2010 before it is shut down to prepare
from rival labs. “Competition is al- the very beginning – be it at CERN or the way for collisions at a maximum
ways welcome,” he says. elsewhere.” CERN is already devel- energy of 14 TeV (i.e. 7 TeV per beam)
Heuer’s desire to host the linear col- oping a blue-print for a future linear at some point during 2011. “But if we
lider is part of his plan to make CERN collider, known as CLIC, while a rival find something interesting at 10 TeV,
a much more global laboratory. Al- design known as the International then we will continue running at
though CERN was set up in 1954 as a Linear Collider is being drawn up by 10 TeV,” Heuer adds.
European facility, its convention does a team led by Barry Barish of the Ca- Matin Durrani
not prevent countries from outside lifornia Institute of Technology. The ● Watch the Heuer interview in full
Europe from becoming members. precise energy at which such a collider at physicsworld.com/cws/channel/
Several thousand physicists from the should operate will depend in part on multimedia
Astronomy
Panel slams NASA’s lunar vision Kip Hodges, director of Earth and
Space Exploration at Arizona State
University, welcomes the committee’s
recognition that manned missions
The US manned spaceflight pro- are useful in exploring the solar sys-
NASA
gramme is on an “unsustainable tra- tem. “There are many things we can
jectory” according to a committee do with robotic assets,” he says. “But
reviewing the country’s ambitious there are many things that humans
plans to send astronauts to the Moon can do that robots can not do – and
and Mars. The committee, chaired by may not be able to do.” Hodges also
former Lockheed Martin chief exe- hopes that any flexible option will in-
cutive Norman Augustine, asserts in clude manned landings on the Moon
a report issued last month that send- and also the Martian moons, where
ing astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit astronauts could command robotic
will require NASA’s budget to be in- instruments on the Martian surface in
creased by $3bn a year. The Augus- real time. “There is a great tactical
tine report adds that even with extra advantage to exploring the surface of
funding, NASA should try to colla- Mars from a moon,” he says.
borate with other countries and ex- The committee will soon present a
ploit commercial launch services. final report to the Obama Adminis-
The report puts forward five op- Guided tour by the mid-2020s, but one would de- tration’s Office of Science and Tech-
tions for future US manned space- The Augustine orbit the ISS, while the other would nology Policy (OSTP) and NASA.
flight. Two involve holding the space committee examine let it remain in position until 2020. With the Administration due to make
agency’s annual budget at the cur- NASA’s Michoud The final option is a “flexible path” its request to Congress in February for
rently proposed limits. These would Assembly Facility in that would start with sending astro- the 2011 financial year, both parties
force NASA to either deorbit the New Orleans. nauts on manned lunar and Martian will have to react fast to the recom-
International Space Station in 2016 fly-bys by 2020 and the option to visit mendations. NASA Administrator
and wait for a manned lunar lander Lagrange points and asteroids. The Charles Bolden has said the agency
until the 2030s, or abandon plans for a path would also include possible will work with the OSTP to review and
Moon lander and instead develop rendezvous with Mars’s two moons evaluate the options put forth by the
commercial services to take crews into Phobos and Deimos or a human re- committee. “Ultimately, of course,
low-Earth orbit. turn to the Moon by the late 2020s. the president will make the final de-
The other three options all require All these three options would be a cision,” says Bolden.
an extra $3bn in annual funding. Two preparation for a manned mission to Peter Gwynne
would return astronauts to the Moon Mars, which is, according to the re- Boston, MA
India analyses loss of lunar orbiter higher orbit meant a loss of resolution
in imaging but an increased speed of
data collection. The final, abrupt, loss
of radio contact on 29 August may
After a flawless launch last year, have been due to the failure of the
ISRO
Energy
Sidebands
Spain powers ahead with solar-thermal Physicist advises UK on energy
The Cambridge University physicist
Spain is rapidly becoming a world leader David MacKay has been appointed chief
Acconia Energía
in solar-thermal power generation with scientific adviser to the UK government’s
the inauguration last month of a new Department of Energy and Climate
11 MW plant in Sanlúcar. It follows hot Change. MacKay, 42, who works on
on the heels of the opening in July of two machine learning and information theory,
50 MW similar plants in Guadix and is author of the book Sustainable Energy –
Badajoz. Costing 7300m, the Guadix Without the Hot Air, which offers no-
plant occupies an area of 2 km2 and will nonsense numerical estimates of the UK’s
produce enough electricity for an future energy production and consumption
estimated 15 000 homes; while the after fossil-fuels run out. Last month
7236m Badajoz plant has an area of MacKay described climate change and
1.3 km2 and will produce enough secure energy as “two of the most urgent
electricity for 28 000 homes. issues facing the UK and the global
According to Carlos Muñoz, head of the community” and added that “the solutions
thermoelectric section of the APPA, the The heat is on the liquid is placed in a container above a must be rooted firmly in science”. A review
Spanish association of producers of The 50 MW solar- tower and mirrors on the ground focus the of his book appears on pp46—47.
renewable energies, Spain has a further thermal plant at light onto it.
10 solar thermal plants in construction. Badajoz in Spain will Solar-thermal is especially attractive Aage Niels Bohr: 1922–2009
When complete, they would meet – and produce electricity for because heat can be stored before The Danish physicist and Nobel laureate
probably exceed – the Spanish 28 000 homes. converting it into electricity, thus allowing Aage Niels Bohr died on 8 September at
government’s objective to reach 500 MW the plant to produce energy when there is the age of 87. The fourth son of quantum-
from solar-thermal plants by 2010. no sunlight for up to seven hours. About physics pioneer Niels Bohr, he shared the
However, the country still lags behind the 35 projects for new thermo-solar plants 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with
US, which currently generates 350 MW were presented to the Spanish Ministry Ben Mottelson and Leo Rainwater for their
from such facilities. of Industry between June and July. work on the structure of the nucleus. The
Solar-thermal plants work by focusing “If they are all approved, we expect trio combined the liquid-drop model of the
light through parabolic-shaped mirrors 2200–2500 MW installed in Spain by atomic nucleus, which pictures it as an
onto oil, molten salts or water. The heated 2011,” says Muñoz. This, he says, would incompressible fluid, with the “shell”
liquid is then used to produce steam that be about 5% of the country’s annual model to produce a “collective model” of
drives turbines. Another mode of energy consumption. the nucleus. Bohr studied physics at the
operation, as used at the new plant in Michele Catanzaro University of Copenhagen in 1940 before
Sanlúcar, involves a tower design. Here, Barcelona he and his family were forced to flee
Denmark because of their Jewish
High-risk energy plans yield low rewards background after the Nazis invaded the
country. Bohr later worked on the
Manhattan Project at Los Alamos with his
Scientists have complained that a new I had no idea sons for rejection is Martin Hoffert father, whom he also succeeded in 1963
research body run by the US Depart- what the from New York University. “I had no as head of the Institute for Theoretical
ment of Energy (DOE) is suffering idea what the referees had said or Physics in Copenhagen.
from management problems and is referees had the expertise of those involved in the
rejecting funding proposals without said or refereeing,” says Hoffert, whose team Alan Turing receives official apology
stating why. The DOE’s Advanced the expertise had proposed research on the feasi- UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has
Research Projects Agency–Energy bility of space-based solar-power tech- issued a posthumous apology to the
(ARPA-E) – created in 2007 – is de-
of those nology using diode lasers rather than mathematician Alan Turing over the
signed to fund high-risk, high-payoff involved in the microwaves as the transmission me- “appalling” way he was treated by the
research and development projects in refereeing dium. Even though NASA had pre- British government for being gay. In a letter
energy. However, the agency, which viously endorsed the concept, Hoffert to the Daily Telegraph, Brown said that he
received its first budget in April, has says he was treated like other research- was “very proud to say: we’re sorry. You
so far turned down almost 95% of ers who had “off-the-wall ideas”. deserved so much better.” The apology
proposals after the first round. The problem stems in part from came after thousands signed an online
ARPA-E is meant to fund new pro- ARPA-E not having a director – al- petition created by computer scientist
jects that could help to reduce emis- though Arun Majumdar from the John Graham Cumming. In addition to
sions of greenhouse gases and the Lawrence Berkeley National Labor- helping crack the codes of the German
US’s dependence on foreign sources atory is expected to be appointed soon Enigma machine during the Second World
of energy. Since April, the agency has – and too few programme managers. War, Turing pioneered modern computing
received 3500 eight-page “concept But the agency says that applicants and was a key thinker in artificial
proposals” asking for a share of the can submit full proposals even if they intelligence. In 1952 he was convicted of
$150m in research cash. However, all receive a “rejection” letter. “It is just a “gross indecency” for being gay. Faced
but 200 of the applicants received a different way of operating from what with the choice of incarceration or
letter stating that their proposals were scientists are used to,” a DOE spokes- “chemical castration”, Turing opted for the
“unlikely to be funded”. person told Physics World. latter, but committed suicide two years
One scientist to have complained Peter Gwynne later aged just 41.
that the letters did not state the rea- Boston, MA
Clusters propel German universities cipating universities are given all the
cash, which it distributes to the other
partners. Although there are two clus-
ters that feature two universities in
Science in Germany may be world class but many of the best researchers different parts of Germany, most are
formed between universities and re-
are not in the university system. Michael Banks looks at an initiative to search institutes in the same city or
strengthen the country’s universities by creating “clusters of excellence” surrounding region. “I think that
being local means that it is easier to
Matin Durrani
The annual publication of a list of demonstrate that the cluster benefits
the world’s top universities by the the university,” says Wehrberger.
Times Higher Education newspaper
must make grim reading for research- A shining light
ers in Germany. The list, drawn up in One particularly successful cluster
partnership with education provider is the Munich-Centre for Advanced
Quacquarelli Symonds, last year in- Photonics (MAP) based at Garching,
cluded only three German univer- north of the city. Consisting of four
sities in the top 100 – Heidelberg in partners – the LMU, the TU, the Max
57th spot, followed by the Technical Planck Institute for Quantum Optics
University (TU) in Munich (78th) and and the military’s Bundeswehr Uni-
the Ludwig-Maximilians-University versity Munich – MAP has about 300
(LMU), also in Munich, coming in researchers working on everything
a lowly 93rd. The US in contrast, has from quantum optics and radiological
37 of the top 100 universities, while imaging to quantum information.
the UK boasts 17. The photonics centre receives
Yet Germany is, of course, a power- about 77m per year in funding, which
house in scientific research, publish- has been used to employ seven new
ing more than 100 000 papers in associate professors and two full pro-
physics each year. One reason for the fessors who are based at the three
relative weakness of the country’s uni- participating universities. “A sub-
versities is that many top researchers stantial fraction, almost 50%, of the
are attracted to Germany’s 76 Max funding went directly or indirectly
Planck Institutes, where staff are well into new positions,” says Ferenc
funded, do not have to teach and can Krausz, a director of the Max Planck
instead focus fully on research. Scat- Big impact to help universities and technical Institute for Quantum Optics and co-
tered across the country, the institutes Ferenc Krausz at the schools recruit more students, the ini- director of MAP.
are recognized for leading their fields Max Planck Institute tiative also includes a 72.7bn fund According to Krausz, the cluster is
in basic research in everything from for Quantum Optics, specifically designed to boost research good for the university groups as they
biophysics to plasma physics. which is collaborating at German universities, via what is get the chance to access cutting-edge
Other scientists, meanwhile, are with local universities known as the “excellence initiative”. equipment at the Max Planck Insti-
drawn to the Helmholtz Association on research into Launched in 2006, the initiative has tute, while the Max Planck Institutes
of German research centres, which advanced photonics. so far led to nine universities – inclu- can use it to attract PhD students
include world-leading labs such as ding the LMU, TU and Heidelberg – or postdocs. Krausz says that more
DESY in Hamburg and the GSI receiving extra funds in order to cre- than 300 papers have been published
heavy-ion facility in Darmstadt. Ger- ate a German-style “Ivy league” and by the cluster, with about 25 of these
many’s research base is further streng- so push more German universities appearing in top journals such as
thened by the Leibniz Association, into the top 100. The excellence ini- Nature and Science.
which has a total of 84 institutes, while tiative also includes a programme to Although the clusters of excellence
the 60 Fraunhofer institutes work on create “clusters of excellence” . It gives operate on five-year funding cycles,
applied research in association with cash to universities to not only fund some say it makes sense to limit how
German industry. Indeed, such is the their own research but to also colla- long they are supported for so as to
strength of German science that in the borate with nearby research centres foster competition. However, the Ger-
last 10 years five Germans have been such as the Max Planck institutes. The man government is now considering
awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, 71.9bn programme now incorporates allowing the clusters to be funded for
of whom two – Peter Grünberg (2007) 37 clusters across social science, engin- an extra five years. “The current time
and Theodor Hänsch (2004) – spent eering and the physical sciences. frame of five years is really not long
most of their careers in the country, We have to “The aim was to strengthen very enough to establish research pro-
but not in the university system. strengthen the good universities and departments grammes,” says Wehrberger. “We be-
In an attempt to make Germany’s universities. that are strong in their field,” says lieve that a 10-year funding period will
universities more competitive inter- They are the Klaus Wehrberger, head of the re- be necessary to fully develop the po-
nationally, in June the chancellor search centres division at the German tential of these clusters.”
Angela Merkel, who is a physicist by centre of Research Foundation (DFG). Suc- But for Krausz in Munich even “five
training, unveiled a 718bn 10-year education for cessful clusters are chosen for the plus five” may still not be enough.
plan for German science and educa- the young and originality of their research, the level “You have to hire people and then
tion. In addition to 77.5bn for the four of interdisciplinary of that work and build the structure in the university
national scientific institutions men-
for the future the ability of a university to be able to and that needs reforms,” he says. “My
tioned above between 2011 and 2015, of German create a cluster. wish would be to fund the clusters for
and a 77.9bn “higher education pact” science Once a cluster is successful, parti- 20 years.”
Driving excellence done by groups at the university, with each receiving three institutes within
Although it was launched in 2006, in the remainder done at the Forschung- the last 15 years. But although Wehr-
fact the 71.9bn cluster of excellence zentrum Karlsruhe. “I would say that berger says that there is no selection
programme grew out of an earlier “re- the cluster has increased collabor- bias when picking the clusters that are
search centres” programme launched ation between groups quite substan- funded, the clusters of excellence
in 2001 by the DFG to make inter- tially,” says Schön. “We have seen a initiative has so far favoured universi-
nationally visible research groups at significant number of joint publica- ties in the west, with only five of the
universities and to fund them with tions between the university and the 37 clusters being in the east.
about 75m per year. One project that Forschungzentrum, and about a quar- “The lower concentration is eastern
emerged from this is the Centre for ter of published papers between dif- Germany is not really unexpected,”
Functional Nanostructures (CFN) in ferent groups within the university.” says Wehrberger. “They know that
Karlsruhe, which is a collaboration is they have to do more to get a good
between the University of Karlsruhe Moving east? foundation, upon which they can form
and the Forschungzentrum Karlsruhe. But two decades after the fall of the clusters of excellence.” For him, the
Having run for eight years, it now sup- Berlin Wall, which led in 1990 to the key is to strengthen Germany’s uni-
ports about 250 scientists, including reunification of Germany, the bigger versities wherever they are. “We have
47 professors or group leaders, who question is whether the universities in to strengthen the universities. They
together work on over 90 research former East Germany have been im- are the centre of education for the
projects in areas like nanophotonics, proved as a result of programmes like young and for the future of German
nanoelectronics and nanomaterials. the excellence initiative. Research has science,” he says.
According to physicist Gerd Schön certainly been boosted by the creation The 2009 list of the world’s top 100
at the CFN, nearly 80% of the re- of Max Planck Institutes in the east, universities, due out this month, is
search carried out at the centre is with Dresden, Berlin and Leipzig sure to make interesting reading.
Germany in ‘cash for PhDs’ scandal not, however, expect to file criminal
charges against doctoral candidates,
because there is currently no evidence
that the people involved were aware
that the consultancy service was bri-
ASTRON
likely to come to mind is a huge white time. As the various stations are
dish pointing skyward, such as the spread out over Western Europe,
76 m Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank combining the signals from all these
in the UK or the 100 m Green Bank different locations provides LOFAR
Telescope in West Virginia. Indeed, with its high resolution.
such dish telescopes have been the LOFAR will use antenna divided
mainstay of radio astronomy for the into two kinds – low-band antennas
last 50 years, allowing astronomers to operating from 10–90 MHz and high-
discover new kinds of celestial objects, band devices operating between 110
such as pulsars and masers, not visible and 250 MHz. Several hundred of
at optical frequencies. However, such each type will be placed together at
dishes do not work well when it comes a single station, and there will be 18
to observing the lowest frequency such stations distributed over several
radio waves – below about 100 MHz – square kilometres at the core site, cur-
because their diameter is too small rently being built in Drenthe, a pro-
relative to the wavelength to provide Overcoming the ionosphere LOFAR so good vince in the north of the Netherlands.
adequate resolution. Radio astronomy was in fact born More than 50 000 There will be a further 18 stations
To open up this largely unexplored at very low frequencies. In 1931 Bell antennas spread within 50 kilometres of this site and
section of the electromagnetic spec- Telephone engineer Karl Jansky was across Europe will then several other stations in France,
trum, astronomers are developing a investigating the origin of interfer- make up the 7100m Germany, Sweden and the UK. The
number of facilities consisting of di- ence in shortwave communications Low Frequency Radio long baselines that result will provide a
pole antennas – simple wires that across the Atlantic when he discov- Array (LOFAR). high enough resolution that radio
work just like FM receivers. Since ered radio waves at 20 MHz coming sources can be identified with visual
they are very cheap to make, many from the centre of the Milky Way. But objects, even at the lowest frequencies.
such antennas can be placed together because these low-frequency signals
to create a huge and therefore sen- are heavily distorted by the Earth’s Looking back in time
sitive telescope at low cost. The only ionosphere, radio astronomers have LOFAR was originally an interna-
catch is that these arrays rely on huge since concentrated on the higher end tional consortium, comprising astron-
amounts of computing power, with of the spectrum, where such distor- omers from Australia, Europe and
the signals from the antennas being tions are less important the US. However, after disagreements
digitized, sent to a central processor Since the early 1990s, astronomers over where to site the project, the con-
and then combined using software have been using computer programs sortium split, with the result that the
so that they emulate the output of a to correct for such ionospheric in- Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)
conventional telescope. terference for an array of dishes. is now being built in Western Aus-
The largest such telescope that is However, such corrections are harder tralia, with separate plans for similar
currently under construction is the to make when radio signals are com- facilities in the US and China.
7100m Low Frequency Radio Array bined using interferometry from One of LOFAR’s specific aims
(LOFAR), which, when complete, arrays of dishes separated by up to will be to study “reionization” – the
will consist of 50 000 antenna stations several hundred kilometres – a tech- period that began a few hundred thou-
throughout the Netherlands and nique that is needed to improve the sand years after the Big Bang when
nearby countries such as Germany, otherwise poor resolution of radio the neutral hydrogen filling the uni-
Sweden and the UK. Being developed astronomy. It is in order to achieve verse at that time began forming into
by a consortium under the leadership high resolutions while also overcom- stars and galaxies. These stars and
of ASTRON, the Netherlands Insti- ing the blurring effects of the iono- galaxies then ionized their environ-
tute for Radio Astronomy, LOFAR sphere that astronomers are now ment, destroying neutral hydrogen in
will allow scientists to look back to the turning to arrays of dipole antennas. the process and leaving a marker for
formation of the first stars in the uni- Dish telescopes bring incoming the evolution of the universe. LOFAR
verse, scan the skies for rare transient waves from a particular direction to It places most can observe this neutral hydrogen
phenomena, and study high-energy a focus at a single point by virtue of of the costs not because its redshifted emission prob-
cosmic rays. their parabolic geometry. An antenna in some huge ably lies at about 140 MHz. However,
Michael Garrett, general director of array, in contrast, works by calculating more sensitive instruments will be
ASTRON, points out that this project the difference in arrival times of a steel parabolic needed to chart the evolution of this
represents a fundamental change in wave at neighbouring antennas and antenna, but in star-forming period by mapping neut-
the development of radio telescopes. then introducing an equal delay when commercially ral hydrogen as a function of fre-
“It places most of the costs not in some combining the signals from these an- quency (i.e. the redshift).
huge steel parabolic antenna,” he says, tennas. In fact, by carrying out many
available back- In addition, the fact that LOFAR
“but in commercially available back- such calculations simultaneously, end digital can observe eight different patches of
end digital electronics.” LOFAR can observe “beams” from electronics the sky at the same time (and retro-
CSIRO
permassive black holes. The telescope centre and announced plans for another which will form the “core” of Australia’s
will also be used to study the solar as part of the country’s bid to host the SKA bid, and where installation of a
wind, the structure and evolution of Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio pathfinder array, known as ASKAP, is
cosmic magnetism, and ultra-high- telescope. The A$100m International scheduled to begin later this year.
energy cosmic rays via the radio emis- Centre for Radio Astronomy Research The centre is being funded by the
sion produced by showers in the (ICRAR) in Perth, Western Australia, West Australian state government and
Earth’s atmosphere. was formally opened last month, while the universities of Western Australia
The computing and data-transport a planned A$80m high-performance Looking up and Curtin, and will eventually employ
power of the facility might also be computing centre nearby will serve An artist’s impression 50–60 staff, including international
used in more down-to-Earth appli- SKA-related projects and others in the of the ASKAP collaborators, Tingay says.
cations by attaching other instruments physical sciences. The two facilities are pathfinder array at The computing centre, meanwhile, is
to the array. For example, a set of geo- designed to help realize SKA and also the Murchison to be supported by federal funds. Named
phones will be used to carry out seis- boost Australia’s chances against a rival Radio-Astronomy after Australian radio-astronomy pioneer
mic imaging of the way the low-lying South Africa-led proposal to host it. Observatory. Joe Pawsey, it will be open to all
Netherlands is sinking due to natural The SKA concept is based on an array Australian researchers requiring access
gas being pumped out of the ground. of 2000–3000 linked antennas, which to supercomputing resources. Initially,
Namir Kassim, a radio astronomer will be scattered from a central “core” to however, its main focus will be the signal-
at the Naval Research Laboratory in remote stations, giving the array the processing tasks associated with ASKAP
Washington, DC, who was project same collecting area as a hypothetical and another radio-astronomy facility, the
scientist for LOFAR in its previous 1 km-diameter steerable dish. Key Murchison Widefield Array, which is
incarnation, is confident that the scientific challenges include designing currently under construction.
facility will do valuable science. “The the antennas and developing the Meanwhile, New Zealand has formally
low-frequency end of the radio spec- computing capacity to handle the joined Australia’s SKA bid, raising the
trum is so poorly explored that it terabytes of data that both SKA and possibility that up to 20 antennas could
is quite a safe bet that LOFAR will smaller prototype arrays – known as be built on the country’s North and South
lead to important new discoveries for “pathfinders” – will generate. Islands, some 5000 km away from the
astrophysics,” he says. That senti- Steven Tingay, ICRAR’s deputy director, candidate core site in Western Australia.
ment is echoed by Philip Diamond, says that projects at the new centre will Such a long “baseline” would boost an
director of Jodrell Bank, who regards include designing and testing arrays of Australia-based telescope’s ability to
LOFAR as “an instrument that has all-electronic telescopes like those resolve distant objects.
been designed to do science we may planned for SKA. The centre will also Peter Pockley
not yet have thought of”. provide operational support for the Sydney
Five stations have now been com-
pleted in Germany and the Nether- Medical physics
lands. The first interferometric fringes
have since been produced and Garrett
says that the vast majority of the Dutch Study warns of radiation risk in medical imaging
and European stations should be com-
plete by the time of the formal open- A study of a million US patients sug- If a procedure sociated with the procedures.
ing of the facility, which is scheduled gests that some who undergo medical The data revealed that 0.2% of the
for June next year. imaging could be exposed to more
is used patients received an annual dose of
But Diamond warns that getting ionizing radiation than those who appropriately, more than 50 mSv – equal to the limit
LOFAR fully up and running will be a work with radioactive materials in then the benefit for occupational exposure to workers
challenge. “The team has needed to nuclear power plants. The study, re- far outweighs in nuclear power plants and other
develop techniques to deal with radio- ported in The New England Journal sources of ionizing radiation. The
frequency interference, and the re- of Medicine (361 849), implies that any risk authors suggests that, generalizing the
searchers will also have to cope with current exposure to radiation from from ionizing results to the entire US population,
the solar maximum predicted for 2013 conventional X-ray equipment as well radiation about 400 000 adults could be exposed
and the resultant disruption to the as computed tomography (CT) and to such a high dose; whereas four mil-
ionosphere,” he says. “They are also positron-emission tomography (PET) lion could receive annual doses above
going to test the new computational scanners could lead to tens of thou- 20 mSv – the occupational limit for
techniques to their limit.” Still, Dia- sands of extra cases of cancer in the airline crews.
mond adds that this experience should US alone. Brahmajee Nallamothu of the Uni-
prove valuable in the construction of The study was carried out by a team versity of Michigan, a co-author of
radio astronomers’ next hoped-for led by cardiologist Reza Fazel of the paper, notes, however, that the
monster telescope, the Square Kilo- Emory University, who used data risk to any individual for a single test
metre Array (see right). As its name from insurance claims to identify the may be small. “If a procedure is used
suggests, this facility would use detec- number and types of procedures that appropriately, then the benefit far
tors with a combined area of a square patients underwent between 2005 outweighs any risk from ionizing radi-
kilometre, an undertaking that is likely and 2007. The team then estimated ation,” adds Fazel.
to cost at least $1.5bn. LOFAR, in individuals’ exposure to ionizing radi- Peter Gwynne
comparison, will be a snip. ation based on the effective doses as- Boston, MA
AURIGA ®
Information Beyond Resolution
1µm 1µm
Key components of the AURIGA® CrossBeam®: Layer stack of a CdTe based thin film solar cell prepared Cross section through the front contact of a Si
GEMINI® electron optical column (center), focused ion by focused ion beam. Courtesy of Prof. W. Jaegermann, wafer-based solar cell. Courtesy of Dr. F. Machalett,
beam (left) and gas injection system (right). TU Darmstadt, Germany. ersol Solar Energy AG, Erfurt, Germany.
physicsworld.com
STFC
cosmology. I agree with Susskind that the
Feedback
Letters to the Editor can be sent to Physics World,
idea of a “cosmic watchmaker” is not
science – it is faith and belief expressed via
religion. However, it seems to me that a
multiverse of mutating universes is not
strictly science either, because it is, and
Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK, probably always will be, untestable.
or to pwld@iop.org. Please include your address and The author rightly refers to theories, but
a telephone number. Letters should be no more than often these straddle what can be tested
500 words and may be edited. Comments on articles (“science”) and what cannot (“philosophy”
from physicsworld.com can be posted on the website; or “belief”). The fact that scientists do not
an edited selection appears here all believe the same thing about the
existence of a cosmic watchmaker, let
alone what that cosmic watchmaker might
Alternative MRI limits be like, shows there are areas of human
enquiry that cannot be scientifically proved
Denis Le Bihan’s article on magnetic or disproved. That should not, however,
resonance imaging (MRI) clearly shows stop us asking the questions, nor seeking to
the incompatibility of the International
Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Neutron scattering provide models and hypotheses based on
what we can test.
Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines with MRI Accepting the reasonable hypothesis of a
practice (August pp16–17). Although the
ICNIRP recently relaxed its limits on static
gets short-changed multiverse as described in the article only
leads to more questions, such as “Why does
magnetic fields, the stringent limits on In your excellent coverage of the latest the multiverse exist at all?”. Surely, when
low-frequency magnetic fields remain round of funding cuts by the UK’s Science science leads to questions beyond its means
incompatible with certain MRI and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), to answer, it is revealed – alongside religion
procedures. Moreover, the ICNIRP limits you highlight the problems that will be and art – as a basic part of human enquiry,
contrast sharply with those of the Institute caused by the severely reduced operations experience and expression.
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers of the ISIS neutron source (August p7 and Elaine Pierpont
(IEEE), even though both are derived p15). As a frequent neutron scatterer, I can Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, UK
from the same scientific database. only echo your sentiment that it makes no elaine.pierpont@btinternet.com
The ICNIRP’s extreme precaution was sense at all for the UK to build a superb
criticized in a series of letters to the journal new facility like the £148m ISIS second I very much appreciated Lee Smolin’s
Health Physics as long ago as 1998, and the target station if it can be switched on for article on “The unique universe”
incompatibility with MRI procedures was only 120 days per year. (June p21–26), which argued against the
foreseen. However, this excessive However, I cannot agree with your idea of a timeless multiverse. Perhaps
precaution – which at frequencies in the analysis that this crisis has been triggered people who remain keenly interested in
kilohertz range amounts to exposure limits by a fall in the value of the pound. physics well beyond retirement tend to
that are lower than the IEEE limits by According to STFC’s own press release, its become more “middle of the road”
considerably more than an order of budget includes additional funding to when the subject becomes linked with
magnitude – only became a practical compensate for the effect of international philosophy, but, whatever the reason,
problem when the European Commission exchange-rate movements on its large most thinking people I know appear to
mandated the ICNIRP limits in its 2004 international subscriptions. This extra accept that time must exist.
directive restricting occupational funding kicks in once the cost due to Even if its existence can be regarded as
exposures to electromagnetic fields. currency fluctuations exceeds a £3m annual a series of timeless “snapshots”, to be
As of July, the ICNIRP is inviting cap. The STFC annual budget of £491m is interested in the progress of existence
comments on a draft revision of its therefore well above its baseline allocation requires the concept of “rate”, as in
low-frequency guidelines (covering the of £429m from the 2007 comprehensive “rate of change of temperature” etc, which
0–100 kHz range). This draft includes a spending review. is easier to conceive and to quantify if the
partial relaxation of limits towards the Next year will mark the 75th anniversary participation of time is accepted. Because
IEEE values (although it does not refer of James Chadwick’s physics Nobel prize of this, I have come to regard time as the
to these specifically). But why stop there? for the discovery of the neutron. As things dimension in which change takes place.
Why not eliminate all the excessive caution stand, we could end up marking this event If this view is taken, a timeless universe
in its guidelines and adopt the IEEE values by switching off ISIS, the UK’s flagship would also be a changeless one. At my
even up to 100 MHz? The IEEE standards neutron-scattering facility. age, I cannot believe that I live in a
are based on the same science used by the Neal Skipper changeless universe!
ICNIRP, and differ only in the magnitude University College London D P Donegan
of their “safety factor”. As past chairmen n.skipper@ucl.ac.uk Chorley, Lancashire, UK
of IEEE who have been involved in
standards-setting for the safe use of I would like to thank Robert Crease
electromagnetic energy for more than
40 years, we feel that there is a scientific
Time, the multiverse for writing about the responses to the
question on religion in Physics World’s
case for international harmonization.
John M Osepchuk and belief 20th anniversary survey (August p18), and
for highlighting the deep ignorance that
Ronald C Petersen prevails over “religion” even in our well-
Concord, Massachusetts, US I read with interest Leonard Susskind’s educated community. To equate religious
Bedminster, New Jersey, US article on “Darwin’s legacy” (July pp42– belief with the tooth fairy, as one survey
ron.petersen@verizon.net 45) and how these ideas relate to respondent did, is to be unaware of our
Feedback physicsworld.com
physicsworld.com Feedback
readers to try this for themselves when combined gas and electricity bill (for a 2 °C. By the time the central heating is
Sirius appears again this winter. family of four) is now £28 per month. switched off sometime in April, the solar
Had I gone with the standard set-up that panels are providing the domestic hot
our installer was offering, I am sure that water except on very wet days, when I
In hot water, again the savings would be nothing like as good:
it pays to do your homework before
manually switch on the immersion heater
for a short time.
Regarding Norman Willcox’s letter about specifying a system. Electric immersion It is difficult to know precisely how
the problems of using solar panels for heaters should be avoided, since, much money the system saves. However,
domestic heating (August p21), I also have environmentally, it is poor form to use a before I installed it, I kept the gas boiler
thermal solar panels installed. However, high-grade energy source such as electricity running for most of the year just for hot
contrary to his disappointing experience, for heating. Also, given that a kilowatt- water. Now it is turned off for at least five
I have found that they provide my family hour of electricity costs about four times as months, which has presumably extended
with a useful amount of hot water. In our much as a kilowatt-hour of gas, it does not its useful life. Moreover, after I installed it,
system, the solar energy is used to heat a make economic sense. The solar industry the gas company queried the very low
store of water, which has no other source of (at the installation level) could do with a gas consumption in summer and
heat. Mains-pressure cold water passes good physics lesson. continued for three or four years to send
through this store via a heat exchanger, Alastair Basden estimated bills for far more than the
removing heat from it and warming up. Durham, UK system had consumed.
If the water becomes warm enough, an a.g.basden@durham.ac.uk If you insist on having a full tank of
unpowered thermostatic valve allows it to piping hot water at all times, then solar
go straight to the hot taps (mixing it with I have been using solar water heating for panels are not for you. Whatever your
cold if it is too hot). However, if it is not hot 20 years, so although I am not a physicist, system, the output will vary from day to day
enough, then the water is directed first I feel able to comment from years of and season to season, and you must
through our previously installed gas- experience. My system works in monitor it to get the best out of it. But I
powered combination boiler and then to combination with gas central heating in would be sorry to be without either the
the taps. winter and an electric immersion heater in solar water system or the photovoltaic
This year, the first day we did not require the summer. The pump supplying the hot- system I have been using to feed energy
the combination boiler for water heating water storage tank kicks in when there is a back to the grid for the past two years.
was in March. Between May and August, 6 °C difference between the temperature Sheila Watkins
we used the boiler only about 20% of the of the panels and the bottom of the tank, Wincanton, Somerset, UK
time, despite a wet July. As a result, our and it cuts out when the difference falls to sheila.watkins@homecall.co.uk
C Carreau, ESA
Next month
in Physics World
Recipes for planets
With new observations of exoplanets pouring in,
astronomers are obtaining valuable information about the
temperature and composition of these new worlds that
may help us understand how planets form
physicsworld.com
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Reviews and Careers Editor Margaret Harris
Web Editor Hamish Johnston But the issue will, as always, be how to put words into
Web Reporter James Dacey action. After all, carbon-dioxide emissions have kept
Advisory Panel John Ellis CERN, Peter Knight on rising since the Kyoto deal was agreed in 1997.
Imperial College London, Martin Rees University The main message of this special issue of Physics
of Cambridge World is that tackling climate change, while meeting
Publisher Jo Allen the world’s current and future energy demands, is not
Marketing and circulation Angela Gage just a scientific and technical challenge but a matter of
Display Advertisement Sales Edward Jost politics and communication too. That theme is under-
Recruitment Advertisement Sales Chris Thomas lined by the physicist and former BP chief executive
Advertisement Production Mark Trimnell Lord Browne, who offers four messages for politicians of whichever persuasion
Art Director Andrew Giaquinto (p20). In addition to rethinking the state’s role in the energy market and seeking a
Diagram Artist Alison Tovey worldwide solution to global warming, Browne warns that governments should not
Subscription information 2009 volume compartmentalize climate change and must encourage action in areas where “eco-
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on an individual basis, worldwide, through membership of unless scientists – and physicists in particular – do more to warn the world of the
the Institute of Physics
dangers of climate change, we could end up being blamed by future generations
Copyright © 2009 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual for “the havoc our ignorance and myopia has brought them”.
contributors. All rights reserved. IOP Publishing Ltd permits Climate modellers will no doubt argue that they have done their best to shed light
single photocopying of single articles for private study or
research, irrespective of where the copying is done. Multiple on global warming, but, elsewhere in the issue (p33), Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s
copying of contents or parts thereof without permission is in Goddard Institute for Space Studies argues that such models need to be made more
breach of copyright, except in the UK under the terms of the
agreement between the CVCP and the CLA. Authorization of useful to politicians. As Schmidt explains, climate scientists have typically studied
photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or the impact of carbon dioxide separately from, say, aerosols or the emissions that
personal use of specific clients, is granted by IOP Publishing Ltd
for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright
cause ozone. What we need now, says Schmidt, is an increasing focus on models
Clearance Center (CCC) Transactional Reporting Service, that can take into account all of these factors – and the interactions between them
provided that the base fee of $2.50 per copy is paid directly to – at the same time. That should give better answers to policymakers’ questions, such
CCC, 27 Congress Street, Salem, MA 01970, USA
as how to supply power to the growing populations in China and India.
Bibliographic codes ISSN: 0953-8585 None of this is to say that we should ignore scientific solutions. Elsewhere in this
CODEN: PHWOEW
Printed in the UK by Warners (Midlands) plc, The Maltings,
issue, two US scientists, George Crabtree and John Sarrao, describe the materials-
West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH science challenges that we need to overcome in the quest for clean, long-lasting
and sustainable energy (p24). Meanwhile, Alan Smith and David Tolfree from the
UK outline how nanotechnology could transform the energy industry (p40).
Finally, US energy consultant Paul Michael Grant (p37) offers an even more am-
The Institute of Physics
76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT, UK bitious solution to solving the world’s energy needs – a network of underground
Tel: +44 (0)20 7470 4800 pipes carrying nuclear-power-produced hydrogen that serves both as a fuel and as
Fax: +44 (0)20 7470 4848 a coolant for superconducting electricity-carrying cables. It is the most ambitious
E-mail: physics@iop.org
Web: iop.org of all the technologies presented in this issue, but typical of the bold vision that
Physics World has an ABC audited physicists can bring to solving the energy puzzle.
circulation for 2008 of 35 183
The contents of this magazine, including the views expressed above, are the responsibility of the Editor.
They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute of Physics, except where explicitly stated.
sent a political dilemma of the highest order What the politicians say politicians must seek a global solution to cli-
and there are few easy answers. mate change. The immediate battle against
For this reason, the second imperative is to Climate change cannot be tackled by politicians climate change will be mostly waged in the
pursue action in areas of activity in which eco- on their own but through politicians and people developing world. In the next decade, op-
nomic prosperity, national security and en- working together portunities to reduce emissions in develop-
vironmental integrity come together. Using Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and ing countries represent two-thirds of the
public money for green-energy infrastructure Climate Change global potential. What is more, this could be
and for energy-efficiency improvements achieved at half the cost of action in the
would not only help reduce greenhouse-gas No other major European country generates less developed world.
emissions, but also guide the path towards of its electricity from renewables [than the UK], What these four imperatives point to is a
economic recovery and energy security. although we have some of the best wind, wave and new direction for government policy in re-
There are some who argue that it is not the tidal resources in Europe sponse to climate change. In previous years
role of government to stimulate investment Greg Clark, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy energy policy has been judged by two met-
in new energy industries. But governments and Climate Change rics: security and cost. To this we must now
have been doing this for decades and with add a third: low-carbon generation.
great success. The UK offshore oil and gas Developing our renewables as quickly as possible The impact of this will affect every sector
industry was created from virtually nothing must be the highest energy priority of the UK economy – from agriculture to
during the 1970s and 1980s due, in part, to Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat Shadow finance, and from software management to
generous tax incentives and government Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change civil engineering. It may feel a lot like step-
help to build strategic infrastructure. There ping into the unknown but humanity has
is an even greater cause for government in- energy infrastructure that we urgently need. thrived in those moments where it has most
tervention today because climate-change And in troubled economic times, it is pushed itself. For this generation, the task
mitigation is a public good that would not important that the government has a hand remains to bridge the gap between the scien-
otherwise be recognised by the free market. in directing financial resources to projects tifically possible and the politically feasible.
Given this need for greater government where they are urgently needed. In April the
intervention, the third imperative is for po- UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Lord Browne of Madingley is President
liticians to rethink the state’s role in energy Darling, announced £525m of support for of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
markets. The market is the most effective offshore wind facilities that has been imme- A physicist by training, he is also a
delivery system available to society, but it diately successful in unlocking projects worth former chief executive of BP
needs strategic direction and a framework of a combined 3000 MW.
rules if it is to provide the more diversified The fourth, and final, imperative is that
ADVENT
1 18
Hydrogen
Standard Helium
1
H Catalogue Items 2
He
1.0079 June 2006 4.0026
0.090 0.177
-252.87 2 13 14 15 16 17 -268.93
Element Name
Lithium Beryllium Boron Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen Fluorine Neon
Atomic
3
Li 4
Be No. Symbol 5
B 6
C 7
N 8
O 9
F 10
Ne
6.941 9.0122 Atomic weight 10.811 12.011 14.007 15.999 18.998 20.180
0.54 1.85 ¦ 2.46 2.27 1.251 1.429 1.696 0.900
180.5 1287 Density Solids & Liquids (g/cm3) Gases(g/l) 2076 3900 -195.79 -182.95 -188.12 -246.08
Sodium Magnesium M.pt./ B.pt.(˚C)
¦
Melting point (Solids & Liquids) • Boiling point (Gases) Aluminium Silicon Phosphorus Sulphur Chlorine Argon
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar
22.990 24.305 26.982 28.086 30.974 32.065 35.453 39.948
0.97 1.74 2.70 2.33 1.82 1.96 3.214 1.784
97.7 650 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 660.3 1414 44.2 115.2 -34.04 -185.85
Potassium Calcium Scandium Titanium Vanadium Chromium Manganese Iron Cobalt Nickel Copper Zinc Gallium Germanium Arsenic Selenium Bromine Krypton
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr
39.098 40.078 44.956 47.867 50.942 51.996 54.938 55.845 58.933 58.693 63.546 65.39 69.723 72.64 74.922 78.96 79.904 83.80
0.86 1.55 2.99 4.51 6.11 7.14 7.47 7.87 8.90 8.91 8.92 7.14 5.90 5.32 5.73 4.82 3.12 3.733
63.4 842 1541 1668 1910 1907 1246 1538 1495 1455 1084.6 419.5 29.8 938.3 816.9 221 -7.3 -153.22
Rubidium Strontium Yttrium Zirconium Niobium Molybdenum Technetium Ruthenium Rhodium Palladium Silver Cadmium Indium Tin Antimony Tellurium Iodine Xenon
37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe
85.468 87.62 88.906 91.224 92.906 95.94 [98] 101.07 102.91 106.42 107.87 112.41 114.82 118.71 121.76 127.60 126.90 131.29
1.53 2.63 4.47 6.51 8.57 10.28 11.5 12.37 12.45 12.02 10.49 8.65 7.31 7.31 6.70 6.24 4.94 5.887
39.3 777 1526 1855 2477 2623 2157 2334 1964 1554.9 961.8 321.1 156.6 231.9 630.6 449.5 113.7 -108.05
Caesium Barium Lutetium Hafnium Tantalum Tungsten Rhenium Osmium Iridium Platinum Gold Mercury Thallium Lead Bismuth Polonium Astatine 0Radon
55 56 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Cs Ba 57-70 Lu Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn
132.91
1.88
28.4
137.33
3.51
727
* 174.97
9.84
1652
178.49
13.31
2233
180.95
16.65
3017
183.84
19.25
3422
186.21
21.02
3186
190.23
22.61
3033
192.22
22.65
2466
195.08
21.09
1768.3
196.97
19.30
1064.2
200.59
13.55
-38.83
204.38
11.85
304
207.2
11.34
327.5
208.98
9.78
271.3
[209]
9.20
254
[210]
–
302
[222]
9.73
-61.85
Francium Radium Lawrencium Rutherfordium Dubnium Seaborgium Bohrium Hassium Meitnerium Darmstadtium Unununium Ununbium Ununtrium Ununquadium Ununpentium Ununhexium
87 88 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116
Fr Ra 89-102 Lr Rf Db Sg Bh Hs Mt Ds Uuu Uub Uut Uuq Uup Uuh
[223]
–
[226]
5.0 ** [262]
–
[262]
–
[262]
–
[266]
–
[264]
–
[277]
–
[268]
–
[281]
–
[272]
–
[285]
–
[284]
–
[289]
–
[288]
–
[292]
–
– 700 1627 – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Order on line
Visit our website for
latest Catalogue prices
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£ • € • Sfr • US$
Advent Research Materials Ltd • Eynsham • Oxford • England OX29 4JA
+ new stock lines Lanthanum Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium
57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
La Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb
138.91 140.12 140.91 144.24 [145] 150.36 151.96 157.25 158.93 162.50 164.93 167.26 168.93 173.04
*Lanthanoids 6.146
920
6.689
795
6.64
935
6.80
1024
7.264
1100
7.353
1072
5.244
826
7.901
1312
8.219
1356
8.551
1407
8.795
1461
9.066
1497
9.321
1545
6.57
824
Actinium Thorium Protactinium Uranium Neptunium Plutonium Americium Curium Berkelium Californium Einsteinium Fermium Mendelevium Nobelium
89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102
Ac Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No
**Actinoids [227]
10.07
232.04
11.72
231.04
15.37
238.03
19.05
[237]
20.45
[244]
19.816
[243]
–
[247]
13.51
[247]
14.78
[251]
15.1
[252]
–
[257]
–
[258]
–
[259]
–
1050 1842 1568 1132 637 639 1176 1340 986 900 860 1527 827 827
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Photolibrary
The scientific community is failing
miserably in communicating the
potential catastrophe of climate
change. Joseph Romm urges
scientists to start engaging with
the public – now
physicsworld.com
Pssst!
Need a low-noise amplifier?
political issue than a scientific one, thereby
necessitating in their view a “balanced” pre- The fate of perhaps Go to www.femto.de to learn more
sentation of both sides, notwithstanding about …
the fact that the overwhelming majority of
scientists understand humans are warming
the next 100 billion
… Low-Noise Voltage Amplifier –
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writer Chris Mooney and scientist Sheril scientists trying to
Kirshenbaum offer these grim statistics
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communicate the
(2009, Basic Books):
● For every five hours of cable news, one
dire nature of the
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● Some 46% of Americans believe that the climate problem n Variable Gain up to 100 dB (x 100,000)
Earth is less than 10 000 years old; n Input Impedance up to 1 TΩ
● The number of US newspapers with sci- 2006 article in the Bulletin of the American n Manual and Remote Control
ence sections has shrunk by two-thirds in the Meteorological Society explained (87 1025),
last 20 years; “For a scientist whose reputation is largely
● Just 18% of Americans know a scientist invested in peer-reviewed publications and
personally; the citations thereof, there is little profes- … High Speed Current Amplifier –
● The overwhelming majority of Americans sional pay-off for getting involved in debates Series HCA
polled in late 2007 either could not name a that mix science and politics.”
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are either not scientists or not alive”. how to effectively engage the public on this
crucial issue. The physics community in par-
The lack of scientific messaging ticular must help lead the way. After all, it
Yet just when the media are abandoning sci- was effective at warning the public and pol-
ence coverage, many scientists are increas- icymakers about the dangers of that other
ingly reluctant to address politicized issues existential threat to the human race – nuc-
like global warming. lear weapons. We appear to have walked n Bandwidth DC up to 400 MHz, Rise-Time
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things that they do not know, since that is egy. We are again at the precipice. Indeed, it … 19” Lock-In Amplifier Board –
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they do not keep repeating the things that visor and physicist John Holdren has said
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scientists about the strong areas of consen- the only question is whether we can avoid
sus on global warming. And as the physicist unmitigated catastrophe.
Mark Bowen writes in Thin Ice (2006, Holt), One final point. If the scientific community
his book about glaciologist Lonnie Thomp- is unable to help persuade the public, opin-
son, “Scientists have an annoying habit of ion-makers and political leaders to take the
backing off when they’re asked to make a necessary action now, then the entire rela-
plain statement, and climatologists tend to tionship of science to the broader world will
be worse than most.” change forever. When the US and the world n Working Frequency up to 120 kHz
As scientist and writer Jared Diamond do get desperate about global warming in the n Phase Independent Output
wrote in a 1997 article in Discover magazine next decade or two, then the entire focus of n Manual and Remote Control
on scientific messaging (or the lack thereof), society, of scientists and engineers, and of n For Low Cost, Multi-Channel and OEM
“Scientists who do communicate effectively academia will be directed toward a Second-
Applications
with the public often find their colleagues re- World-War-scale effort to mitigate what we
sponding with scorn, and even punishing can and adapting to the myriad miseries that
them in ways that affect their careers.” After our myopic dawdling has made inevitable. I
Sagan became famous, he was rejected for do not think that the scientific community has
membership of the National Academy of even begun to think about that.
Sciences in a special vote. This became widely
known, and, as Diamond writes, “Every sci- Joseph Romm is a physicist and FEMTO ® Messtechnik GmbH
entist is capable of recognizing the obvious climate expert, and a senior fellow at
Berlin / Germany
implications for his or her self-interest.” the Center for American Progress in
Scientists who have been outspoken about Washington, DC, where he edits the info@femto.de n www.femto.de
global warming have been repeatedly at- blog ClimateProgress.org, e-mail
tacked as having a “political agenda”. As a jromm@americanprogress.org
net electricity
solar imports 0.06
0.07 12.45
nuclear 6.37 electricity 27.06
8.21 generation rejected
2.83 20.46 39.52 energy
hydro 57.43
2.86
2.17
0.26 4.61
wind
0.26 0.30 residential
0.06 10.88 8.70
geothermal 0.01 1.29
0.34 0.41
4.47
4.43 1.63
0.01
natural gas commercial
22.19 8.15 6.52 energy
2.90 services
0.62
0.02 42.32
0.06
4.97
0.10 3.45
coal 7.81 industrial
22.44 24.88 19.90
9.71
1.91 1.96
0.41
biomass 21.60
3.37
0.48 0.02
0.64 0.62
transportation
27.67 28.80
petroleum 7.20
39.95
Where the energy goes Data from 2006 on how energy (in quads) is produced and used in the US. The numbers on the left indicate what percentage each type of energy
contributes to the total primary supply. Following each energy “stream” to the right shows how much of that energy is consumed for useful services and how much is
unused. (Note that all the numbers have been rounded.) Despite decades of research and development, sustainable-energy technologies (top left) account for only a tiny
fraction of the total energy flow. Altering this landscape will require breakthroughs in nanomaterials and chemical processes that convert energy efficiently between
photons, electrons and chemical bonds. Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and DOE
to the photocell, where it replaces the hole left by the days and long-distance transmission capacity to deliver
original electronic excitation. Once completed, the wind energy from its remote sources to urban popu-
electron round trip does no harm and leaves no chem- lation centres. The output of wind turbines is limited
ical change. However, although solar electricity may by the weight of the generator that can be supported
be fully sustainable in operation, it is not necessarily on the tower. Superconducting generators can, how-
fully sustainable in the construction or disposal of its ever, lower the cost and land area required for wind
infrastructure – both steps require energy and emit car- electricity by a factor of two because they produce
bon dioxide. These often-ignored full-life-cycle issues twice the output but are the same size and weight as
must be considered when evaluating the sustainability conventional generators.
of energy technologies. As for fossil-fuel electricity plants, they can be made
Despite the appeal of solar electricity, serious tech- more sustainable by capturing their carbon-dioxide
nical challenges block its widespread deployment. emissions and sequestering the gas in underground
Before the reach of solar electricity can expand, its costs geologic formations. Carbon sequestration prevents the
must fall below those of fossil electricity and must be carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere – a pos-
low enough to attract the majority of future demand itive step toward “doing no harm”. This positive step is
growth without artificial incentives. Achieving this will balanced, however, by the challenges associated with
require breakthroughs in understanding and control- injecting the carbon dioxide underground. We know
ling the fundamental nano-scale phenomena of photo- little about how carbon dioxide reacts with the porous
excitation, charge separation and charge transport in, rocks in which it would reside, and less still about how
for example, high-efficiency mulitjunction solar cells far it might migrate during the thousands of years it
and in low-cost organic and thin-film solar cells (see must remain there. Carbon dioxide is supercritical
Without the “Nanotechnology: does it have the energy?” on pp40– under sequestration conditions, and the high tem-
ability to store 45). An even greater and less-explored challenge is perature and pressure alter its reaction chemistry and
electricity, utility-scale electricity storage to bridge the day–night enable it to diffuse quicker through porous rocks.
solar power and cloudy–sunny cycles. Without the ability to store These primary scientific challenges require a host of
can never be electricity, solar power can never be more than a sup- studies of surface-reaction chemistry to identify re-
plement to fossil energy generation. action pathways, intermediate species, chemical kin-
more than a As a derivative of solar energy, wind electricity shares etics and diffusion phenomena under simulated
supplement to its sustainability profile, with the potential to satisfy sequestration conditions.
fossil energy all three criteria. The barriers to wind electricity are Beyond reaction chemistry, techniques for monitor-
generation cost, utility-scale storage of electricity to bridge calm ing and modelling the migration of large quantities of
sustainability profile
technology lasts a long time does no harm leaves no change breakthroughs needed
lower-cost, high-efficiency
solar electricity photovoltaics; third-generation
materials and nanostructures;
electricity storage
nuclear electricity
? (high temperature, radiation flux
and corrosivity); geological
emissions radioactive monitoring and modelling; new strategies
waste for chemically separating fission products
new methods for cellulosic
breakdown to sugar or fuel;
cellulosic biofuel
new catalysts for converting
carbon dioxide to fuel
Making the grade One of the most important factors to consider when evaluating sustainable technologies is the scientific advances needed to
make them viable. This table is only a rough guide, since several currently unknown factors still need to be explored.
supercritical carbon dioxide are also needed, so that lifetimes, reduces the number of nuclear plants that will
we can anticipate where and how far it might travel over need to be built.
the thousands of years it must remain underground. These increases in efficiency can be achieved by
The potential for contaminating an aquifer or finding operating reactors at higher temperatures (1000 K
an escape route to the atmosphere must be thoroughly instead of the current 650 K) and at neutron fluxes an
understood for every sequestration site. Leakage is order of magnitude higher than the current values of
indeed one of the biggest challenges. A sequestration 4 × 1013 n cm–2 s–1. However, at such high temperatures
system with a leak rate of 1% per year exhausts all the and fluxes, chemical corrosion is an additional serious
carbon dioxide stored in its first year of operation in challenge. Next-generation reactors will require a new
just a century – a blink of an eye on the timescale of generation of “extreme materials” that can not only
ocean–atmosphere dynamics. During release, heavy survive, but also function under the triple extremes of
carbon dioxide can displace lighter oxygen in low-lying high temperature, high neutron flux and aggressive
areas, possibly leading to the suffocation of people chemical corrosion. Advanced ferritic steels hold
and animals, as happened in a catastrophic incident at promise in these environments; developing them by
Lake Nyos, Cameroon, in 1986. design rather than serendipitously will accelerate
From a sustainability perspective, sequestration al- deployment significantly.
lows us to use the Earth’s coal resources (which will last The scientific challenge for next-generation extreme
longer than oil, though not as long as the Sun) with materials – whatever their composition – is to under-
reduced harm to the atmosphere. Storing carbon di- stand their failure modes, and to prolong their useful
oxide underground, however, carries potential risks lifetimes by interrupting or arresting these failures.
of contamination and leakage that are largely un- Damage starts with atomic displacements that create
explored. Sequestration also leaves clear chemical interstitials and vacancies, which then migrate and Like carbon
changes as coal is removed from the Earth and carbon aggregate to form clusters and ever-larger extended sequestration,
dioxide is injected. structures. Eventually, the damage reaches macro- nuclear
scopic dimensions, leading to degradation of perform-
The nuclear options ance and failure. This problem is massively multiscale, electricity
Like carbon sequestration, nuclear electricity keeps covering nine orders of magnitude in its spatial dimen- keeps
greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, and thus rep- sion, and neither experiment nor theory has yet cap- greenhouse
resents a step towards sustainability. Next-generation tured this complexity in a single framework. gases out of the
reactors based on new materials could last longer than On the experimental side, in situ measurements of atmosphere,
reactors designed in the 1960s – typically 80 years or neutron irradiation with atomic or nano-scale resolu-
more instead of 60 – and can turn 50% of the heat pro- tion are needed to observe the initial damage processes,
and thus
duced by fission into electricity, compared with 32% followed by coarser-grained experiments to capture represents a
for existing reactors. Higher efficiency also allows the migration, aggregation and ultimately macroscopic step towards
uranium supply to last longer; this, together with longer failure. The modelling challenge is equally dramatic: sustainability
higher energy density and longer life-cycles; non-aque- viable long-term option for transportation.
ous electrolytes for higher operating voltages; and The sustainability profile of electric transportation
entirely new electrochemistry approaches such as is potentially high because electricity, once produced,
lithium–air electrodes or doubly ionized cations that is environmentally benign and leaves no chemical
can lower the battery’s charge-to-mass ratio. change. The primary sustainability issue is the large-
Fuel cells offer an alternative to batteries by gen- scale production of electricity for battery-powered
erating electricity onboard via hydrogen oxidation. vehicles or of hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles. Existing
Developing this alternative requires scientific break- production routes use fossil fuels to generate electri-
throughs in catalysis for the oxygen-reduction reaction city and the reformation of natural gas to produce
at fuel-cell cathodes, high-density storage of hydrogen hydrogen; both deplete finite natural resources and
in lightweight solid compounds and the production emit substantial amounts of carbon dioxide. In con-
of hydrogen from renewable resources. Substantial trast, using renewable electricity produced by solar and
progress has been made in the last five years towards wind to charge batteries or solar-powered water split-
overcoming these barriers to using hydrogen as an ting to produce hydrogen has the potential to last a long
energy carrier, as indicated by the rise in the number time, do no harm and leave no change. Achieving these
of researchers and published papers in the field. Such renewable production routes will require break-
advances raise the probability that fuel cells will be a throughs in discovery and use-inspired basic science.
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Finely honed Climate models are becoming increasingly useful in setting policy because they are being extended to take into account many more of the interactions that
matter. Shown here are the changes in annual average surface temperature, ranging from a cooling of 2°C (blue) to a warming of 2.4°C (red), due to short-lived gases and
particles between 2000 and 2030 (left and centre columns) and due to long-lived gases between 2000 and 2050 (right column). Each row shows results for a different
model. Hatching indicates a statistical significance of 95% for the response. Source: Drew Shindell, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies
enough information for policymakers to properly controls mean that the mix of emissions is much more
weigh up these different effects. Neither have we complicated – carbon dioxide, of course, but also large
clearly identified the key sectors around the world that amounts of carbon monoxide, black carbon and sul-
might provide win–win–win scenarios for people wor- phates. Together, these emissions contribute strongly
ried about climate, air quality and ecosystems. to the “Atmospheric Brown Cloud” phenomenon and
However, scientific and computational advances in to the appalling air quality in the region. This implies
climate modelling and validation over the last few that efforts to improve rural electrification for instance
years now mean that we can do a much better job. – even if the power is generated in a modern coal power
Models now include many more of the interactions plant – could still reduce net climate warming because
that matter: atmospheric chemistry that can predict of the impacts on reducing ozone, methane and black
ozone concentrations as a function of the methane or carbon. These kinds of strategies are already being
carbon-monoxide precursors; or aerosol physics for pushed by the Indian government because of the more
multiple kinds of particles – those directly emitted, like direct impact on indoor and regional air quality and to
soot and mineral dust, and those created in the atmo- reduce the deforestation associated with biomass col-
sphere from other emissions. More importantly, the lection, but a recognition of the net climate impact may
models now include myriad interactions: the chemistry help bridge the current gaps in the international nego-
that takes place on the surface of dust aerosols that in tiations on a climate treaty.
turn affects sulphates; the impact of increasing me- Other surprises include the recognition that redu-
thane on atmospheric oxidation, which affects aerosol cing methane emissions from whatever source has
concentrations; or the affects that aerosols have on important indirect impacts on a range of other drivers
clouds or snow albedo. and is a more effective strategy for short-term reduc-
We can therefore now start to directly answer the tions in global warming than had been previously re-
questions that policymakers are raising – and some of cognized. As we move forward, we should be able to
the results may be surprising. assess the net climate impact of any particular policy
In Europe, for instance, the use of coal for power given the changes in emissions that will result.
generation produces very little sulphate aerosol or Like a full life-cycle analysis for judging the impact
black carbon because of existing air-quality controls. on net emissions of a switch in energy-generation tech-
Thus, the only options for reducing the climate impact nologies, a full Earth-system analysis should become
of coal relate to specific reductions in coal burning or the new standard in judging climate-policy proposals.
investment in carbon capture and sequestration. All climate models are wrong, but some of them are
However, in India and China a lot of coal and bio- useful, and by working more closely to answer the ques-
mass is burned in domestic settings where inefficient tions that are actually being posed by policymakers, we
low-temperature combustion and a lack of pollution can make them more useful still. ■
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Superstars The figure above left depicts a light-industrial, commercial/residential complex powered by nuclear-generated “hydricity” delivered over a hydrogen-cooled
SuperCable using high-temperature superconductivity wires. The “sun” represents the presence of photovoltaic roof panels as an adjunct power source, and the “pond” by
the nuclear plant represents the processing of sewage and other organic waste. Note the hydrogen-powered truck transporting “waste” oxygen resulting from the
electrolysis of water, which can be sold for commercial purposes or used to process or combust locally produced biowaste. DNA-to-order.com represents a hypothetical
biotech firm of the future. Above right is conceptual depiction of the SuperSuburb and its baseline hydricity power supply and distribution to 300 000 end-users based on
the energy consumption of the author’s family household and provided by a “SuperNuke” of the approximate capacity of the Diablo Canyon facility located on the California
coast 250 km south of San Jose. On the opposite page is an example of a continental SuperGrid. This figure is simply illustrative, not literal. Various rearrangements can be
imagined and visualized to accommodate US regional political interests.
of carbon in the Earth’s crust. invasive – that is, to impress as small a footprint as
One major harbinger of this trend is the effort cur- possible on the environment and ecology. This latter
rently under way globally to develop technologies to requirement makes massive-scale renewables, such as
replace hydrocarbons with hydrogen as surface ve- wind, solar and biomass, unnecessary, but not indus-
hicular transportation fuel. In 2003 I estimated, as an trial–commercial–residential solar photovoltaics on
example of the enormity of this challenge, that the pro- roofs, as one has to live and work somewhere and
duction of sufficient quantities of hydrogen to replace the land area deployed is thus available for dual use.
the then-current annual consumption of petroleum in Similarly, by necessity, community provision is needed
cars and trucks in the US alone, either by electrolysis for the disposal of both sewage and discarded food,
or thermal splitting of water or methane, would re- which can subsequently be converted into methane to
quire additional power production equivalent to generate hydricity. I estimate that perhaps 85% of the
roughly 420 GW, which is one-third of the nation’s elec- energy requirements of SuperCity can be provided by
tricity generation capacity, currently about 1.3 TW nuclear-generated hydricity, abetted by an additional
(Nature 424 419) . Given the massive amounts of car- 15% from solar power and biowaste. Finally, all the
bon dioxide that would be need to be captured should technologies required for SuperCity already exist or
this hydrogen be generated either directly or indirectly are on the immediate horizon – no new breakthroughs
from fossil fuels, and given the enormous land areas or discoveries are needed.
needed for biomass, wind or solar required in its place, In order to quantify the SuperCity concept, I under-
one is brought to the conclusion that only nuclear took a detailed study of a “SuperSuburb” modelled
power can feasibly enable a complete hydrogen-trans- using data that describe the energy consumption of a
portation economy in developed and developing typical family home – mine – in a Silicon Valley resi-
nations. An expansion of nuclear power for electricity dential community such as San Jose. The study takes
and hydrogen production worldwide must be accom- into account individual residential electricity require-
panied by the creation of a new international organiza- ments for appliances, lighting, air conditioning and
tion capable of ensuring, by armed force if necessary, cooking, and hydrogen for the storage of electricity and
that the actinide materials employed are not diverted, personal transportation (50 000 km per year per fam-
from mine to enrichment through reprocessing and ily). Not included are community-support services such
breeding, for military purposes. as shopping centres, electric rail rapid transport and
street lighting.
Only nuclear The SuperCity In 2004 and 2005, I collaborated with Chauncey
I have a vision of an energy society based on a symbi- Starr from the Electric Power Research Institute and
power can osis of nuclear power generation of hydrogen and elec- Thomas Overbye from the University of Illinois on an
feasibly enable tricity, dubbed hydricity, distributed via a “SuperCable” extension of the SuperCable concept to encompass an
a complete employing high-temperature superconductors cooled entire continent, essentially comprising a continental
hydrogen- by cryogenic hydrogen. The latter would also be used SuperGrid (2006 Scientific American July pp76–83).
transportation as an intrinsic power agent at the end delivery point in The figure on the opposite page shows how this con-
addition to electricity. cept might apply to the “lower 48” states of the US.
economy in
An urban embodiment is suggested in the form of a However, similar scenarios can be constructed for
developed and light-industrial, commercial/residential “SuperCity”. China, India, South America, existing East–West Euro-
developing The “boundary conditions”, or ground rules, are that pean energy corridors and the Middle East – in partic-
nations the technologies employed be carbonless and non-eco- ular Saudi Arabia, as that nation moves from oil to
physicsworld.com
hydrogen
commercial electricity
solar roofs
hydrogen
electricity
electricity
hydrogen
energy storage electricity
residential
heavy industry
A quixotic dream?
Are SuperCities, SuperSuburbs and SuperGrids, al-
though in principle feasible with today’s emerging tech-
nologies, merely quixotic dreams? As mentioned
earlier, the various technologies required are already
available. The eco-impact of transmission corridors
would be about the same as a current oil or gas pipe-
lines. Regarding cost, it is estimated that the 1220 km
Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, including supporting
pumping stations, will cost about $18 000m, to which
would be added SuperCable materials and packaging,
which I estimate to be approximately $6000m over an
equivalent distance. The footprint required for hy-
dricity generation by nuclear power is far less than for
fossil fuels and especially renewables, but it is more
expensive than the former. Estimates of the costs of
future Generation IV plants run from $1400 per kW to
$4000 per kW (for comparison, coal plants capitalize
at $800 and natural gas at $450).
Having said this, it is important to point out that the
energy economy, unlike most of the private sector, is
driven by a multitude of factors in addition to tech-
nology. The next round of iGadgets will succeed in the
marketplace only if they are smaller, run faster and
cooler, cost less and create an addicted user commu-
nity. Technology is, at best, only 50% of the energy
equation, the remaining terms being driven by social
and political policies together with public perception,
which is often not guided by sound science (witness,
for example, the irrational fear of electromagnetic
fields emanating from overhead transmission lines).
A thorough energy makeover must also find ways to
address these other, non-technical factors. That will
arguably be a far more difficult challenge. ■
Does nanotechnology
have the energy?
From new kinds of solar cells and improved wind turbines to supercapacitors and novel
hydrogen-storage techniques, developments in nanotechnology could transform the energy industry,
as Alan Smith and David Tolfree explain
Alan Smith is The single most important problem facing humanity containing titanium-dioxide nanoparticles that help
managing director of today is the need to secure a supply of sustainable protect against skin cancer. It is even possible to pro-
AZ-TECH Ltd and energy to meet the world’s current and future de- duce strong, thin coloured plastic films where the
David Tolfree is vice- mands. It is indeed the greatest challenge of the 21st colour comes not from pigments but from the diffrac-
president of the Micro
century and how we deal with it will determine the path tive properties of the film’s nanostructure.
and Nanotechnology
of our civilization and dictate the course of the world’s The challenge now is to harness such developments
Commercialisation
and Education
future economic development. The aim is simple: to in nanotechnology for the benefit of the world’s energy
Foundation, provide clean, cheap and abundant energy to the six supply. Indeed, in 2006 when the Nanotechnology Law
Manchester, UK, billion people who live on the planet today – a figure and Business Journal published a list of the top 10 ways
e-mail dtolfree@ that is expected to rise to over 10 billion by the middle in which nanotechnology will affect our lives (4 401),
gmail.com of this century. four were concerned with different aspects of energy:
Our best hope lies in exploiting new technology – and solar energy; new batteries; lighter, stronger and more
nanotechnology in particular. Nano-scale materials are conductive materials; and clean water.
not, of course, new. Blood is a nanofluid, milk contains
the nanoparticulate casein, millions of adhesive nano- Look on the sunny side
scale “hairs” on a gecko’s foot let it dash upside down Where nanotechnology will have the biggest impact is
along ceilings, while the colour of a butterfly’s wings on renewables, which currently account for about 16%
arises from light diffracting off crystalline nanostruc- of the world’s primary energy supply. Although the UK
tures. Nanomaterials have also been used in commer- now generates only 4% of its energy from renewables,
cial products for decades, despite not being so named – it and other members of the European Union together
photographic paper and printing inks, for example, plan to increase this proportion to 20% by 2020 as part
contain nanoparticles, as the relatively large surface of a binding target agreed in March 2007. Solar energy,
area allows the solvent to evaporate off rapidly. in particular, is set to benefit from the nanotech revo-
In the last decade, however, research into nano- lution. We know that about 89 PW (89 × 1015 W) of solar
science and nanotechnology has led to over 1000 new power continuously hits the Earth’s surface, and cap-
nanomaterials – many with unique properties – com- turing just 0.02% of that radiation would be more than
ing onto the market, according to data from the Wood- enough to satisfy the world’s current energy require-
row Wilson International Center for Scholars. Tennis ments of about 16 TW (16 × 1012 W).
superstar Roger Federer uses a racket made from a Most of the Sun’s energy is currently captured by
composite material containing nanotubes – tiny, rolled- “first generation” solar cells, which in 2007 accounted
up sheets of carbon – while you can now buy sunscreens for 90% of solar-generated electricity. They are so com-
mon that even the Vatican now has an array of 2000
At a Glance: Nanotechnology and energy solar panels on the roof of one of its buildings, which
were installed in 2007 by the German firm SolarWorld,
● Nanotechnology is set to play a big role in the energy industry – from conversion generating over 315 kWh of electricity each year. In
and storage to transmission and distribution these cells (figure 1a), part of the silicon is doped to cre-
● The renewable sector will be a particular beneficiary through, for example, new ate an excess of holes (i.e. a p-type semiconductor),
kinds of high-efficiency “third generation” solar cells that use quantum dots, while another is doped to contain an excess of electrons
quantum wells and molecular dyes, while new nanostructured materials could (an n-type semiconductor). When photons of sufficient
lead to bigger, stronger but lighter wind turbines energy strike the cell, they promote electrons from the
● Energy-storage devices like supercapacitors and batteries will benefit from valence to the conduction band, thus creating electron–
developments in nanotechnology too hole pairs. Pairs formed on or near the p–n junction
● Durable, highly insulating and light-but-strong nanomaterials could help to reduce separate, with electrons flowing in one direction and
carbon-dioxide emissions by lowering energy consumption holes in the other to create a DC current.
First-generation devices can convert up to 31% of
incoming photons in electron–hole pairs – a limit cal- threshold and have efficiencies of up to 60%. One type High potential
culated by the Nobel laureates William Shockley and of third-generation cell involves stacking multiple cells Nanotechnology has
Hans Queisser back in 1961. The downside is that they with different semiconductor band gaps on top of one led to molecules such
are expensive because they need highly pure, single- another, which lets the device generate a current from as this lithium-coated
crystal silicon wafers. “Second generation” solar cells a much wider range of photon wavelengths than a buckyball that can
store hydrogen to
aim to reduce these costs by coating a glass or ceramic single-crystal cell. For example, Gavin Conibeer and
power fuel cells.
substrate with a thin film of semiconductor, such as cad- colleagues at the University of New South Wales in
mium telluride, copper indium gallium selenide, amor- Australia have been able to control the size of the band
phous silicon or micromorphous silicon. gap by using silicon quantum dots (tiny pieces of semi-
But where second-generation cells win on cost, they conductor), the diameters of which can be adjusted by
lose on efficiency, and the main focus of research is varying the thickness of the deposited thin films from
now on “third generation” devices. These are made which they are precipitated. Another option to boost
from thin semiconducting films, which makes them efficiency is to use carbon nanotubes or quantum dots
cheap, but they can beat the Shockley–Queisser embedded in thin-film conductive polymers that are
current titanium-dioxide
nanoparticles coated
with dye molecules transparent conductor
n-type –
silicon
junction
photons
electron flow p-type electrolyte
__ silicon
+
+
“hole” flow +
catalytic conductor
(a) Conventional “first generation” photovoltaic cells have a single crystal of silicon containing a p-type region with an excess of holes and an n-type region with an excess
of electrons. Photons striking the cell promote electrons from the valence to the conduction band, thus creating electron–hole pairs. Any pairs formed near the
p–n junction separate, with electrons flowing in one direction and holes in the other. (b) “Dye sensitized” solar cells – also known as “Grätzel” cells – are examples of
“third generation” devices and contain semiconducting titanium-dioxide nanoparticles coated with a layer of dye. Photons are absorbed by the dye molecules, which
become excited and eject an electron. This electron can then be “injected” into the conduction band of the titanium dioxide, from where it moves to the top transparent
electrode and out to an external circuit. The dye then strips an electron from the electrolyte, which recovers its missing electron by diffusing to the bottom of the cell, where
a cathode reintroduces electrons that have flowed through the external circuit.
placed on conventional silicon cells. By varying the size trick is to include an electrolyte – typically an iodine-
of the quantum dots, the cells can be tuned to absorb based organic solvent – from which the dye can strip
different wavelengths, which means that efficiencies an electron. The electrolyte then recovers its missing
of more than 40% may be possible. electron by mechanically diffusing to the bottom of the
An alternative third-generation device that also takes cell, where a cathode reintroduces the electrons after
advantage of nano-scale structures is the “quantum flowing through the external circuit. One of the advant-
well” solar cell, which was first developed by Keith ages of the cell is that the band gap of the semicon-
Barnham and colleagues at Imperial College London ductor does not have to be matched to the spectrum of
in 1989. Such devices typically consist of 50 or so nano- light shining on the cell: the absorption spectrum of the
metre-sized slices of gallium arsenide, each sandwiched dye can be easily tuned to this, which is why the cheap
between slightly thicker layers of gallium-arsenide semiconductor titanium dioxide can be used. Last year
phosphide – a structure that lowers the band gap of the Grätzel, who is now at the Changchun Institute of Ap-
gallium arsenide so that it can capture a bigger fraction plied Chemistry in China, was able to obtain cell effi-
of the incoming photons. Efficiencies of 27% have so ciencies of 8.2% using a new solvent-free electrolyte
far been obtained but this figure could rise substantially consisting of a mixture of three different salts.
with further development. And because a bigger frac-
tion of photons generate electron–hole pairs, fewer The leap from the lab
photons are simply absorbed by the semiconductor and Although third-generation solar cells are currently far
converted into heat. less efficient than the best first-generation devices,
An entirely different kind of third-generation device much of the research is still at an early stage and big
is the “dye sensitized” solar cell, pioneered by Michael strides have been made in recent years. Indeed, those
Grätzel and co-workers at the Swiss Federal Institute working in the field are confident that third-generation
of Technology in 1991. Also known as Grätzel cells, cells can eventually become better than conventional
these devices comprise a thin layer of chemical dye and silicon-based solar cells. But in order to take these
the wide-band-gap semiconductor titanium dioxide, devices from the lab bench and into mass production
which is cheaper than silicon. Mimicking the process of we will need to find ways of manufacturing them
photosynthesis, sunlight enters the device through a cheaply enough. Cost is the main driver: the reason why
transparent top contact then strikes semiconducting we do not see every building covered with solar panels
titanium-dioxide nanoparticles, which are roughly is that they are simply too expensive.
20 nm in diameter, coated with a 10 µm layer of dye (see However, a number of companies are already making
figure 1b). Photons are absorbed by the dye molecules, progress working on a variety of Grätzel cells, especially
which become excited and eject an electron. This elec- for applications where direct sunlight is not available –
tron can then be “injected” directly into the conduction these devices can still work if ultraviolet light penetrates
band of the titanium dioxide, from where it moves to the clouds. Cardiff-based G24 Innovations, for exam-
the anode on top and onward into an external circuit. ple, has developed a series of products in which cells
But as the dye molecule has lost an electron, it will have been incorporated into jackets, rucksacks and
decompose unless another electron is supplied. The other textiles, since the devices can be mounted on a
flexible substrate. The firm also sells small wallet-type 2 Wind: where size matters
cells that can be used to charge mobile phones in areas
where electricity is not available.
160 m
Meanwhile, the Australian firm Dyesol is collabor- Airbus A380
ating with the steel giant Corus to commercially manu- wingspan 80 m
facture dye-sensitized solar cells on steel so that they 126 m
physicsworld.com
4 Hydrogen targets
70
ultimate
volumetric capacity (g l–1)
60
50
liquid hydrogen 2015
40
chemical hydride
30
complex hydride
ride cryocompressed
20
compressed at 700 bar
10
compressed at 350 bar
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
gravimetric capacity (percentage weight)
With hydrogen set to become a fuel of the future, it is essential to be able to store
as much hydrogen in as small a volume as possible. This figure compares the
merits of compressing hydrogen gas (yellow), with cooling it under pressure in
special tanks (purple), encapsulating it in materials like buckyballs to form
“complex hydrides” (orange) and bonding it chemically to materials like
nanotubes to form “chemical hydrides” (light green). Also shown are results for
two US Department of Energy (DOE) learning demos (green) operating at different
pressures, as well as the DOE’s targets for 2015 and beyond. Source: DOE
physicsworld.com
Reviews
Niall MacKay and Roger Edgar
physicsworld.com Reviews
course, contributes no energy) from enable readers to do their own calcu- ergy is much more positive and em-
the calculation. lations – in fact, its original working powering than either the school phys-
Of course, some estimates in the title was “You go figure it out!”. ics curriculum or most environmental
book are intended only to be good to To this end, MacKay is very keen literature. By exposing both the data
within a factor of two or so, and oc- that the book should be digestible. It from which his book’s conclusions
casionally somewhat poorer, since is well illustrated, and all algebra is are drawn, and the methods and ar-
MacKay’s goal is often just to put a confined to the technical chapters (in guments by which they are reached,
rough upper bound on a potential effect appendices) that make up the MacKay in effect says “You need take
source of energy. His estimate of last 90 or so pages. The physicist will no-one’s word for it. You can work
tidal-stream power, for instance, find much that informs (and occasion- it out for yourself, and this is how.”
combines physical arguments with a ally amuses) in these chapters, partic- Various reviewers have said something
perusal of the tidal charts in a nau- ularly in those on cars and planes. The along the lines of “every policy maker
tical almanac, and seemed to us (as former runs a long way on very little should read it”. We would rather advo-
yachtsmen) to rather underestimate algebra, and in the latter the basic cate it as a book every budding physi-
the ubiquity of strong tides around physics of a jumbo jet’s energy con- cist should read – and perhaps also as
the UK’s coast. Such an approach sumption is shown to scale down quite the one every working physicist would
does open the book to criticism, par- well to fit an albatross. like to have written.
ticularly from specialists; indeed, it In the main text, however, all that is
could easily become a victim of its needed is basic numeracy and famili- Niall MacKay (no relation to David) is a
own success if policymakers and arity with exponential notation. For mathematical physicist at the University of
others begin to regard its figures as this reason the book would be a good York, UK, e-mail nm15@york.ac.uk.
accurate final judgments. That would way of introducing teenagers to how Roger Edgar was co-founder of Infrared
be a shame, for it would traduce one real physicists work – all the more so Engineering Ltd, a spin-off company from the
of the book’s intentions, which is to because MacKay’s treatment of en- physics department of Imperial College London
Reviews physicsworld.com
Dan Falk
physicsworld.com Reviews
European Jewry in a thoroughly re- tury, many Jews left Europe for the make a compelling essay in its own
searched introductory chapter. He US, and their influence on culture and right), James, who is not Jewish,
also reminds us just how important society came with them. Their role points to a variety of factors. “[It is]
Jews once were to the intellectual life was felt particularly during the Sec- reasonable to suppose that there may
of Europe. Before the Second World ond World War, when Jewish scien- be genetic factors,” he concludes.
War, some European cities were as tists played a significant role in the However, cultural factors along with
much as one-quarter Jewish. Many Allied war effort. And it continues “certain traditions and values which
Jews were doctors, lawyers, business- today. As James points out, currently are distinctively Jewish” may also play
people or professors. In Germany, more than 40% of the members of the a role. No wonder people are squeam-
well-educated Jewish families estab- physics division of the National Aca- ish about such matters. After all, one
lished salons in the capital. “Poised demy of Sciences are Jewish. might argue that it is the notion of
precariously between the nobility and One thing is clear: when barriers to “being different” that has fed so much
the bourgeoisie,” James writes, “they their success are removed, Jews do hatred over the years.
succeeded in transforming Berlin into very well indeed, particularly in the
a major cultural centre.” He also adds sciences. In a thoughtful analysis that Dan Falk is a science journalist based in
that, in Vienna “Jews began first to runs for about a dozen pages, James Toronto, Canada. His latest book, In Search of
enter and then dominate intellectual attempts – bravely, perhaps – to ad- Time: Journeys along a Curious Dimension,
cultural life”. dress the question of why this is the was published earlier this year by the National
In the early decades of the 20th cen- case. In this section (which would Maritime Museum, e-mail dan@danfalk.ca
physicsworld.com
Careers
Of time
and tide
For Stephen Taylor, running a
marine-software company means
plenty of chances to apply
familiar physics to unusual
real-world problems – and being
your own boss is nice too
We often hear of physicists trying to under-
stand, map and explore objects in outer
space, but there are also big opportunities
for physicists where inner space is concerned.
This is particularly the case with the world’s
oceans. For example, while the study of tides
dates back thousands of years and was re- Steering his own course Running a business has proved most fulfilling for marine specialist Stephen Taylor.
garded as a dead subject for most of the last
century, we now realize that tidal physics has I graduated with a physics degree from gically transformed into my clients. I was
an unexpected environmental dimension. Nottingham University in 1975 and then able to use my skills in electronics, comput-
Applications of this revitalized science range worked for the UK’s Water Research Centre ing and design to rapidly produce a system
from the siting of tidal power generators and for some years before the tedium of gov- that fitted the bill. I was also able to set my
the optimization of fuel-saving shipping ernment research drove me to back to aca- own direction and targets. Within a year I
routes, to the effects of tidal height on flood demia. In 1984 I obtained a PhD in applied had produced AutoTide, the world’s first
defences and satellite-based measurements physics from the University of Hull, special- tidal-prediction system compatible with the
of sea level. izing in laser remote sensing. My experience then-new Microsoft Windows operating sys-
This is where firms like mine, Geomatix, with infrared-laser radar systems then took tem. I was enjoying being my own boss.
come in. Recent Geomatix projects include me to the US, where I joined RCA Astro
improving the accuracy of tidal predictions Electronics, which is now part of the defence Branching out
in the Thames Estuary for the Port of Lon- giant Lockheed Martin. I started the company now known as
don Authority, estimating the mean sea At RCA I was expected to work on military Geomatix in 1992 as a one-man operation
level for surveyors in the Persian Gulf, and space projects involving optical commu- with the goal of selling AutoTide in the
providing electronic charts of the sea bed nications. But when I attended a meeting marine market, but I soon moved into other
for the fishing industry. The work extends where some military guys dispassionately areas – notably marine mapping – via a con-
across the related fields of cartography, discussed how using infrared optical com- tract with the UK’s Sea Fish Authority in
hydrography, oceanography and geodesy – munications, rather than radio, could be Hull. The growth of oil and gas production
all areas where physicists are ideally suited a great benefit during a nuclear war in in the North Sea had caused problems for
for tasks ranging from instrumentation to CONUS (military speak for the continental the local fishing industry, as trawl gear would
surveys and mathematical modelling. US), I was disgusted by their callous attitude. sometimes get caught on sub-sea installa-
I realized that a career in military research tions. This led to some nasty accidents and
A long road to the sea was not for me. I therefore left RCA and even fatalities, so I became involved in con-
My career would not have been the same returned to the UK to become a senior lec- verting sea-bed data about oil and gas instal-
without my first physics teacher, the Rev- turer at Humberside Polytechnic’s depart- lations into electronic marine charts for
erend Brother Egbert. A rather eccentric ment of maritime operations, specializing in fishing vessels, so that they can avoid hazards
individual, he would often announce things navigation and radar-simulation training. while trawling.
like “the whole of physics is oscillatory” at Unfortunately, the department closed As part of this work, I spent one summer
seemingly random intervals. On one occa- shortly after I joined it, and in the ensuing frantically driving around harbours and
sion he sprayed his students with a Bunsen chaos I was asked to work as a consultant. At intercepting fishing vessels so I could test
burner connected to a water tap. This may Humberside I had been involved in the the then comparatively new GPS-based
seem like an unlikely inspiration to study design of marine-radar training simulators, electronic charts. On one occasion, I almost
physics, yet I credit him, and my father, an and one of our research sponsors asked me ended up marooned on a fishing vessel as it
early radio ham, for setting me on a career to design a similar system for them. This was was forced to leave harbour by the descend-
path that led – after many twists and turns – my lucky break. Before then, the people who ing tide. This could have been an embar-
to me becoming my own boss at Geomatix. paid me were my bosses; now they were ma- rassing error for someone in the business of
physicsworld.com Careers
tide prediction – especially since the vessel Real-world physics Just as in the field of non-linear optics, non-
was going to be at sea for two weeks – but In this industry, it is not unusual to find physi- linear effects generate additional frequency
fortunately I was able to persuade the skip- cists (many with their own businesses) work- components, producing for example the phe-
per to drop me off as we passed the outer ing amongst hydrographers, mariners and nomenon of standing tides that are found on
pier in Scarborough harbour. oceanographers. Hydrographic topics like parts of the UK’s south coast. In this field,
The business started to expand in the early map projections, navigation and data analy- at least, Reverend Brother Egbert’s phrase
2000s, allowing me to hire a business admin- sis figure high on the list of requirements, about all physics being oscillatory is pretty
istrator and a programmer with an MSc in and all use very similar mathematical skills much spot-on.
astronomy. In 2003 we decided to concen- to those required in physics. On a day-to-day basis, my job as head of a
trate on the specialist area of harmonic tidal For example, the physics problems asso- small-marine software firm involves some
analysis. This is like a first cousin of Fourier ciated with tidal prediction are actually quite programming and some sales work, as well
analysis, and it enables you to work out the similar to those of infrared spectroscopy. as speaking to mariners, port hydrographers
transfer function between the tidal potential Both techniques deal with issues like resolu- and representatives from the oil and fishing
and the instantaneous tidal height. It also tion, line width and modulation – it is just industries. Recently I have also presented a
provides highly accurate figures for mean a matter of changing the frequency band few papers at hydrographic and oceanog-
sea level. So far, our systems for tidal har- from infrared spectral lines at about 1013 Hz raphy conferences, but I am not obliged to
monic analysis have been used in more than to tidal “spectral lines”, or constituents, of churn out publications to meet some bureau-
30 hydrographic offices for tidal prediction about 10–7 Hz. The strongest tidal constituent cratic university target, and am unfettered
and by numerous hydrographic surveyors to comes from the semidiurnal (twice-daily) by internal politics. Instead, I have the free-
determine sea level. Given the threat of cli- tide and has a frequency of 2 × 10–5 Hz. In dom to use the skills I gained as a physicist to
mate change and its associated predicted rise long-duration datasets of tidal height, in benefit clients in the wider world, where I
in sea level, systems like ours are a useful tool contrast, significant tidal components can be have found there is a great need for the prac-
for examining recent trends. The good news resolved down to events that occur about tical application of physics and which can be
is that even with our advanced analysis soft- once every 18 years, or 10–9 Hz – a frequency outstandingly rewarding.
ware, any rise in sea level is almost entirely in line with theoretical models based on the
masked by noise on the tide gauge data from known orbital parameters of the Sun–Moon– Stephen Taylor is managing director of Geomatix Ltd,
storms and surges – so far. Earth system. e-mail set@geomatix.net, Web www.geomatix.net
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Queen
Untitled-11 Mary,
1 University of London 18/9/09 11:24:17
School of Physics
and Astronomy
Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences
MSc in Quantum
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Technologies
Gain an understanding of the fundamental theories behind different quantum
s #6 #LINIC technologies and the principles and implementations of quantum information processing
systems at one of the UK’s foremost, research led Physics departments.
s !DVICE #LINIC
s -OCK !SSESSMENT #ENTRE Quantum Information Science
Quantum Optics
s #AREER PRESENTATIONS
Advanced Quantum Computation
†
s #OMPANY PRESENTATIONS Spintronics
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s 3UBSIDISED TRANSPORT*
†3PONSORED BY
QT
For further information on this course and the
range of study opportunities available in the
School of Physics and Astronomy at the
University of Leeds please call 0113 343 3860
or visit the School website at:
3UPPORTED BY 3PONSORED BY )N ASSOCIATION WITH THE CAREERS SERVICES OF
www.physics.leeds.ac.uk
s &2%% ENTRY
s #6 #LINIC
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EdhiYdXidgVaGZhZVgX]^cBZY^XVa>bV\^c\>chigjbZciVi^dc
MSc Courses in Physics A>E"AVWdgVidgn[dg>chigjbZciVi^dcVcY:meZg^bZciVaEVgi^XaZE]nh^Xh!A^hWdc
A>E"A^hWdclll#a^e#ei^ck^iZhVeea^XVi^dch[gdbdjihiVcY^c\XVcY^YViZh[dgV
Doctoral Training Centres edhiYdXidgVagZhZVgX]Zgedh^i^dc^cBZY^XVa>bV\^c\>chigjbZciVi^dc#
The Physics Department leads three Doctoral Training
I]ZXVcY^YViZhl^aaWZZc\V\ZY^cVG9egd\gVb[dgi]ZYZkZadebZcid[
Centres, offering stand alone one year Masters courses
bZY^XVa^bV\^c\iZX]cdad\^Zh#6E:IhXVccZg[dgWgZVhiXVcXZgYZiZXi^dcl^i]
and four year Masters + PhD training: ]^\]"gZhdaji^dcWVhZYdchX^ci^aaVi^c\XgnhiVahVcYVkVaVcX]Ze]didY^dYZhlVh
YZkZadeZYVcY^hegZhZcian^cXa^c^XVaZkVajVi^dc#6hXVccZgXdbW^c^c\E:I
MRes in Plastic Electronic Materials; VcYjaigVhdjcY^bV\^c\^hWZ^c\YZkZadeZY^cXdaaVWdgVi^dcl^i]i]Z:jgdeZVc
MRes in Controlled Quantum Dynamics; 8ZciZg[dgBZY^XVa>bV\^c\8:G>B:9VcY8:GC#I]ZE:IYZkZadebZcihVgZ
MSc in Theory and Simulation of Materials. YdcZWnVhX^Zci^ÒXXdchdgi^jbaZYWnA>E^cXdaaVWdgVi^dcl^i]i]ZXdbeVcn
E:Ihnh#
Plus Masters courses in: I]ZVeed^cibZci^h[dgdcZnZVggZcZlVWaZVccjVaan[dgVeZg^dYd[jeidh^m
MSc in Physics; nZVgh#HZaZXiZYXVcY^YViZhl^aa]VkZi]Zedhh^W^a^inidVeeaniddcZd[i]ZA>E
MSc in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces; gZhZVgX]hiV[[edh^i^dchidWZdeZcZY^ci]Z[dgi]Xdb^c\[jijgZ#
MSc in Optics and Photonics (The MSc is also a partner FjVa^ÒXVi^dch gZfj^gZY ^cXajYZ V E]9 VcY V XaZVg YZbdchigVi^dc d[ i]Z
in the Erasmus Mundus Masters “Optics in Science and VW^a^inidXVggndjiVgZhZVgX]egd\gVb#:meZg^ZcXZYgZhZVgX]Zgh^cbZY^XVadg
Technology”); eVgi^XaZe]nh^XhYZiZXidghVgZegZ[ZggZY#
MRes in Photonics. 6eea^XVi^dch^cXajY^c\V8KVcYbdi^kVi^dcaZiiZgh]djaYWZhZciidHVcYgV
9^VhhVcYgV5a^e#ei!A>E!6k#:a^Vh<VgX^V!cd#&)!&%%%"&).A^hWdc!Edgij\Va#
HjWb^hh^dcd[Veea^XVi^dcbViZg^Vak^VZbV^a^hgZXdbbZcYZY#I]Zedh^i^dc
gZbV^chdeZcjci^aVhj^iVWaZXVcY^YViZ^h[djcY#
New Courses
The Department of Physics is planning to introduce @ZnldgYh/BZY^XVae]nh^Xh!E:I!^chigjbZciVi^dc!gVY^Vi^dcVcYeVgi^XaZ
YZiZXidgh
further courses in 2010. Check the Physics Department
website for details http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/physics
Rolf-Dieter Heuer confirms November switch-on for the Large Hadron Collider and
discusses plans for the lab's future. Watch the video today, at physicsworld.com.
58 Physics World October 2009
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The Cyprus Institute (www.cyi.ac.cy) is a novel, non-profit research and Computing Support Specialists for the Computation-based
educational institution, with a scientific and technological orientation, Science and Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) -
pursuing issues of regional importance and of global significance in CaSToRC-09-04
the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. The We have two Computing Support Specialist positions available. These
development of CyI involves the progressive launching of several cross- positions will provide computational expertise and technical support
disciplinary research centers. CaSToRC is being jointly developed with for the development of high performance computing facilities, data
the University of Illinois and its National Center for Supercomputing repositories and web and video collaboration services.
Applications and is intended to serve as an important research resource Required Education and Experience:
for CyI, Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean region, and as a gateway • BS degree (MS degree preferred) in a computer science, natural
between the EU and the region for advancing computational science, science, or engineering field required. Alternative degree fields will
engineering and technology. be considered if accompanied by equivalent experience (depending
on nature and depth of experience as it relates to the current project).
• At least 2 years of experience with at least two of the above mentioned
Research Associate for Software Development for the areas.
Computation-based Science and Technology Research In addition, for a Systems Administrator role, successful candidates will
Center (CaSToRC) - CaSToRC-09-02 need to have:
We are seeking a highly motivated Research Associate to participate • At least 2 years of experience in Unix Systems Administration
in the development of software applications including interactive web • At least 2 years of experience in the hardware maintenance of
applications and online databases within the Atlantis European/US computer systems
project entitled “Building a cyber-Platform for the support of High • Strong knowledge of computer systems and programming with at
Performance computing higher education”. The project is coordinated least 2 years of programming experience with one or more of the
by the Cyprus Institute and has as partners NCSA of the University of following: C, C++, Fortran.
Illinois, Penn State University, the Jülich Supercomputing Center, the
German Research School and the University of Wuppertal. Computational Scientist to work in atmospheric and climate
Required Education and Experience: modelling Computation-based Science and Technology
• MS degree in a computer/computational science, natural science, Research Center (CaSToRC) - CaSToRC-09-05
or engineering field required. Alternative degree fields will be We are seeking an outstanding computational scientist to participate in
considered if accompanied by equivalent experience (depending on the development of software and algorithms for atmospheric and climate
nature and depth of experience as it relates to the current project). modeling. The successful candidate will work with the research group of
• At least 2 years of experience in development, modification, Prof. Jos Lelieveld that pioneers research in Climate Change. S/he will
maintenance, porting and administration of web-based applications; be engaged in projects involving challenging algorithmic problems and
UNIX and/or LINUX and programming with one or more of the analysis techniques for large complex data sets.
following: C, C++, Fortran. Required Education and Experience:
• The candidate must have a Ph.D. in physics, computer science, or
related scientific discipline. Experience with numerical methods,
Project Manager for the Computation-based Science and parallel algorithms, software development for High Performance
Technology Research Center (CaSToRC) - CaSToRC-09-03 • Computer systems and strong programming skills are required.
We are seeking a Project Manager to take responsibility of the Experience in climate modeling is a plus but it is not required.
management of its research and educational projects. Most of these
projects are funded from the European Union, from NSF, US and from For further information, the full job descriptions and salary details
the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (RPF). please contact castorc.info@cyi.ac.cy.
The successful candidate will work with Prof. C. Alexandrou, who chairs
the Interim Governing Board of CaSToRC, to oversee and coordinate For full consideration, interested applicants should send a CV, a sample
the planning of the various projects, monitor the progress, design and of their work and the names of three contactable referees by e-mail to
implement appropriate tracking procedures including enabling software HR@cyi.ac.cy by the following dates:
and administer the financial and budgetary aspects. These projects
involve partners from Europe, the US and the Eastern Mediterranean CaSToRC-09-02 - 10th Oct 2009 CaSToRC-09-03 - 30th Oct 2009
and the successful candidate is expected to work with their respective CaSToRC-09-04 - 30th Nov 2009 CaSToRC-09-05 - 30th Nov 2009
administrations for the optimal implementation of the projects. Recruitment will continue until the positions are filled.
+
()& 0
the Science and Innovation Campus at Harwell, you will be expected &
/// ,+! .
to travel frequently to London, the six partner universities and other
organisations relevant to SEPnet activities.
For informal discussion, please contact Professor Robert Allison,
Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Sussex: r.j.allison@sussex.ac.uk or
+44 (0) 1273 678212; or Professor Steve Williamson, Deputy Vice
Chancellor, University of Surrey: s.williamson@surrey.ac.uk
or +44 (0) 1483 689864.
For further particulars and application details, please
contact: Karen Chessman, Deputy Director Human Resources,
University of Surrey: k.chessman@surrey.ac.uk Faculty Position in Theoretical Condensed
Matter Physics, Rice University
or +44 (0) 1483 689159 quoting Ref: 7235.
Closing date: 9 October 2009. Interviews: 22 October 2009.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University
We acknowledge, understand and embrace diversity
invites applications for at least one tenure-track faculty position
XXXTFQOFUBDVLTFQOFUDBSFFSTQIQ in theoretical condensed matter physics. This search is expected
to be at the Assistant Professor level, but consideration of an
appointment at a more senior level may be made in exceptional
cases. The position has an emphasis on fundamental theory, and
will complement and extend existing theoretical and experimental
activities in condensed matter physics (for information on these,
see http://physics.rice.edu/). Applicants should send a dossier that
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP or RESEARCH ASSOCIATE includes a curriculum vitae, statements of research and teaching
in Condensed Matter Physics interests, a list of publications, and two or three selected reprints,
Physics Department : University of Johannesburg, and arrange for at least three letters of recommendation to be sent
Auckland Park Campus, South Africa to: Prof. Q. Si, Chair, Condensed Matter Search Committee, Dept.
A contractual position is available for up to 5 years to a skilled and motivated of Physics and Astronomy – MS 61, Rice University, 6100 Main
Street, Houston, TX 77005, or by email to vcall@rice.edu with
experimental researcher in the physics of strongly correlated electrons, rare-earth
magnetism, or thermoelectric properties of correlated systems. A completed Doctorate
in experimental physics is required. Ample opportunities exist for initiating new projects, subject line “CMT Search”. Applications will be accepted until the
as well as to participate in established projects of the students and members of our position is filled, but only those received by November 15, 2009
will be assured full consideration. The appointment is expected to
group. Facilities available include argon-arc, induction, and tubular synthesis furnaces, and a
variety of materials characterization methods. Measurements capabilities within the group
include a broad range of physical properties such as electronic and thermal transport, start in July, 2010. Rice University is an affirmative action/equal
specific heat, and SQUID-magnetometry. opportunity employer; women and underrepresented minorities
Date of commencement: As soon as possible. are strongly encouraged to apply.
Contact: Prof A. M. Strydom, amstrydom@uj.ac.za,
Phone: +27-11-559-2320, Fax: +27-11-559-2339.
Chair in Theoretical Quantum Optics/ 34,000 employees and serve over 350,000 customers.
We have a new opportunity within our Trace Elemental Analysis
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in physics in physics
pack or to apply on-line please go to www.surrey.ac.uk/jobs
If you are unable to apply on-line please contact
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or email: s.michaelides@surrey.ac.uk quoting Ref: 7243.
Closing date: 30 October 2009.
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