by Tuck C Choy, Oxford University Press, International Series of Monographs on Physics ISBN 0 19 851892 7.
While not at the cutting edge of fundamental physics, effective medium theory is a fruitful way of describing and handling microstructure at the mesoscopic scale. The introduction is by Marshall Stoneham.
edited by E Baron and M Lieuvin, GANIL, France, Institute of Physics Publishing ISBN 0 7503 0663 7 (hbk £220.00/$400).
Cyclotrons 1998 was the fifteenth in a series of international conferences initiated in 1959. Cyclotrons are used in basic and applied research, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine. Included is a complete list of existing cyclotrons and their characteristics.
(2nd edn) by Michael Metcalf and John Reid, Oxford University Press ISBN0 19 850558 2 (pbk).
Despite the continual appearance of new programming languages Fortran, now well into middle age, soldiers on. This new edition summarizes the latest standards. Michael Metcalf, now retired, was a longtime member of CERN’s Information Technology Division.
by G Castelo Branco, L Lavoura and J P Silva, Oxford University Press, International Series of Monographs on Physics ISBN 0 19 850399 7 (£60).
A complete theoretical and phenomenological study of CP violation and the CKM matrix, including the implications for heavy quarks. This is a good reference for physicists at B-factories, but little mention is made of the enormous efforts that are going into measuring the phenomenon of CP violation.
edited by D I Olive and P C West, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 641158 6 (hbk £45/$69.95).
A collection of lectures given in a six-month programme at the Newton Institute in Cambridge, with an introduction and guide by the editors. The contributors are M K Gaillard, B Zumino, J Gauntlett, T Eguchi, G W Gibbons, A Sen, C Bachas, D I Olive and P C West.
edited by Jeremy J Gray, Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 850088 2.
At the Second International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Paris in 1900, David Hilbert presented a list of 23 outstanding problems in mathematics that, in his opinion, needed to be addressed. The sixth congress prophetically called for a greater interplay between geometry and physics.
The bridge from 19th to 20th-century physics has characterized new physics insights. Relativity, with its multidimensional spaces, ushered in new developments. Some of the greatest minds in physics and mathematics focused on these new goals. This is a fascinating collection of papers presented at a 1996 conference at the UK Open University.
by Fridolin Weber, Institute of Physics Publishing ISBN 0 7503 03328 (hbk £99/$180, 682 pages).
Pulsars were discovered by J Bell and A Hewish in 1967 and were identified as rapidly rotating neutron stars. The physics of neutron stars of which there are estimated to be about one billion in the Milky Way alone is covered, along with Strange quark matter when additional quarks come into play beyond the “up” and “down” varieties constituting normal nuclear matter. This physics is also receiving a terrestrial boost with the start of the programme at Brookhaven’s RHIC.
The Laboratory of Particle Physics (LPP) of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The lab was established to carry out experiments in high-energy physics at the most advanced accelerators. Its first director was Igor Savin, who played a major role in promoting particle physics at JINR.
The early days of the laboratory were marked by its participation in the NA4 and SMC experiments at CERN and in the large experimental programme at the 70 GeV accelerator at IHEP, Protvino. Now LPP physicists, headed by Vladimir Kekelidze, are participating in the CERN NA48 and NA58 (COMPASS) experiments; the H1, HERMES and HERA-B projects at DESY; the STAR experiment at Brookhaven; and the Borexino project at Gran Sasso.
The LPP physicists are actively involved in both the CMS experiment being one of the founders of the RDMS (Russia and Dubna member states) collaboration and the ATLAS project at CERN’s LHC collider.
Special attention is paid to the development of new detectors and detector technologies. From the outset, accelerator physics has been one of the main activities of LPP. Now it covers participation in projects at CERN and DESY, the development of accelerators for radiation technology and the study of some conceptual aspects of the future “two-beam” colliders.
The summer heat presses down relentlessly on the plains of Pakistan, but the hills overlooking the capital city of Islamabad from the north perch above the worst of the steamy blanket, and in only an hour and a half’s drive the mercury drops from 40 to 25 °C. Historically, towns in the Murree Hills have been the traditional summer retreat for local administrations, but with improved communications they now throng with plains-dwellers eager to escape the oppressive heat below.
Since 1974 the Murree Hills have also been the scene of a notable annual physics event. In Pakistani physics, the influence of the late Abdus Salam, the first Pakistani to be awarded a Nobel Prize, is everywhere. Throughout the world, Salam is remembered for his physics contributions and for founding the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, which now bears his name. In 1974 he also suggested setting up a regular international forum in Pakistan, to attract scientists from all over the world, particularly from the developing countries. Salam knew that these scattered scientists can easily become isolated and often lack the contact so necessary to keep pace with, and contribute to, contemporary research.
The summer college was established at the leafy haven of Nathiagali (at 2600 m), the former site of the summer residence of the North West Frontier Province. More recently the College has moved to a modern tourist complex in Bhurban, overlooking the Jhelum Valley and facing the foothills of Kashmir.
The summer colleges have attracted a prestigious list of speakers, each year having special keynote topics. This year the 25th International Nathiagali Summer College on Physics and Contemporary Needs focused on three themes: high-energy physics and accelerator-driven fission in the first week; and laser cooling, quantum computing and nanotechnology during the second week. Students came from all over Pakistan and from neighbouring countries in Central Asia.
Pakistan’s increasing involvement in experimental particle physics was reflected in the lectures on high-energy physics. Presentations were given by Hafeez Hoorani of CERN on the subject of W Physics at LEP, Felicitas Pauss of ETH Zurich on Physics at the LHC, Daniel Treille of CERN on the Standard Model and Physics at LEP, Tejinder Virdee of CERN and London’s Imperial College on LHC Detectors, and Oswald Gröbner of CERN on the LHC machine.
In the lectures on accelerator-driven fusion, Jean-Pierre Revol of CERN described experiments by Carlo Rubbia’s group and spoke of future plans at CERN, while Günter Bauer and Sandro Pelloni of the Swiss PSI Institute covered accelerator-driven reactors and neutron reaction rates respectively. Giovanni Ambrosi of Geneva spoke on the AMS particle physics experiment in space, and CERN Courier editor Gordon Fraser surveyed some recent history in “Physics and the 20th century”.
Since Salam’s death in 1996, the college has featured a Salam Memorial Lecture, which this year was given by distinguished theorist Sergio Ferrara of CERN, speaking on “Superspace and supergravity the quest for unification”.
At the official inauguration of the summer college, held at the National Library in Islamabad, a new collaboration agreement was signed between CERN and Pakistan’s recently established National Centre for Physics (CERN Courier March). Pakistan’s President, Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, said he hoped that the collaboration would flourish and that such international ventures would strengthen contacts between Pakistan and the rest of the world.
Jupiter Scientific Publishing Co, New York, ISBN 0 9655176 9 1
Putting the word “God” in the title of a popular science book is a sure-fire way of boosting the sales figures. Now an anonymous group of authors has gone one better in producing The Bible According to Einstein. This is a curious book, from its sombre black cover, complete with Star of Bethlehem (or is that just a symbol of scientific enlightenment?) to its chapter-and-verse structure. In place of authors, the book has a spokesman, Stuart Samuel, a New York-based physicist. Why no authors? “The publisher decided not to list authors and contributors as a means of achieving two of the book’s goals: to mimic the Bible as much as possible in its style and structure while replacing religious issues with scientific ones and to create a feeling of awe.
There’s no doubt that the first goal has been achieved. “In the ‘beginning’, there was no beginning. Before the Planck time, there was no time and there was no space,” claims the opening line of Genesis I: The Planck Epoch. As for the second goal, I’m not so sure. It’s true that the book shares the Bible’s feeling of authority; this is no mere suggestion, this is the gospel truth. However, in that approach lies the book’s main shortcoming.
What attracted me to science was the realization that the universe is a mysterious place. There’s a great deal we don’t know about it and science is the great adventure of finding out. The book makes no attempt at analysis. It simply presents the whole canon of modern science as one fact after another, and that somehow takes away the excitement of finding out. So why did the anonymous authors choose the biblical style? Were they trying to provide a scientific alternative to the Christian Bible? According to Stuart Samuel, the book wasn’t written with scientific evangelism in mind. Rather it was designed to draw a distinction between the things that science is good at and the things that spirituality is good at. “When it comes to the universe that we observe with our senses, science is the best means of obtaining understanding,” said Samuel. “On the other hand, science cannot say anything about the purpose of life, about morality, nor about proper human conduct.” This point is driven home repeatedly throughout the book. The introduction notes that the moral code written down in the religious texts of all of the major religions hundreds of years ago is as valid today as it was then, while our scientific world view has changed beyond recognition.
Throughout history, storms of protest have greeted the gradual encroachment of science onto religion’s patch. This is no more than a misunderstanding, claims The Bible According to Einstein. “There is a line that exists between the domain of nature and the domain of God. People long ago drew the boundary by accident, not at the true line but in the land of science.” The obvious implication is that, once that misunderstanding is cleared up and the boundary finally fixed in its rightful place, science and religion will coexist in harmony.
The Bible According to Einstein is an extremely ambitious project. It contains an overview not only of every branch of science known to man, but also of the more traditional gospels. There are biographies of Moses, Christ, Muhammad and Gotama the Buddha. These are written in the same style as the rest of the book, as one fact after another. They tell the stories of some exceptional lives without developing the equally exceptional philosophies that those lives produced.
All that said, it is an enjoyable book to dip into, if only to see familiar ideas expressed in an unfamiliar way and Stuart Samuel does have a point the Biblical style does confer authority. It’s a quirky book, but there’s a lot of enjoyable reading in The Bible According to Einstein. Keep it next to your Bible, or whatever moral text you happen to subscribe to.
