News

 

Welcome to the Institute of Physics news pages. In this section you will find the latest news from both the Institute itself and also from the national and international physics community.

Below are the news stories from the past 4 weeks.

Michael Gove MP

“We need to increase status, prestige and esteem of teaching”, says Shadow Children’s Minister

Michael Gove MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Children’s, Schools and Families, today, 2 July, 2009, visited the Institute of Physics (IOP) to address concerns about the state of secondary school physics education in the UK, stating that much of the problem for physics in the UK is down to a lack of specialist physics knowledge among science teachers and a need to raise the status of the teaching profession

 
 
 
Isaac Newton medal
IOP announces 2009 award winners

Successful business applications such as drug screening technologies, flat-panel displays and solar-cell designs are amongst the achievements in physics recognised by the Institute of Physics’ (IOP) 2009 awards, announced today (Wednesday, 1 July), along with leading research in a wide range of fields from astronomy to optical physics, and excellence in engaging the general public with physics

 
IOP Publishing
IOP Publishing achieves Impact Factor success for the fifth year running

The 2008 Impact Factors, just released by Thomson Reuters, show significant growth for many journals published by IOP Publishing, the Institute of Physics (IOP)’s publishing company, for the fifth year running

 
 
Institute of Physics News
Re-established Science and Technology Committee

Dr Robert Kirby-Harris, chief executive at the Institute of Physics (IOP), has welcomed today’s re-establishment of a parliamentary Science and Technology Committee

 
Institute of Physics News
Response to Science and Technology Facilities Council 2009-10 Budget

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has today, Wednesday, June 25, confirmed its 2009-10 science and technology programme

 
 
Fernand Holweck, Director of the Curie Laboratory
Holweck Medal awarded for advances in electron inspection of nanostructures

French physicist Dr Christian Colliex from Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Université Paris Sud at Orsay, is the 2009 recipient of the Holweck Medal and Prize for his pioneering use of the electron microscope to further our understanding of the electronic structure of nanomaterials

 
Nuclear Power Plant
British Climate Act “failed before it started”

The British Climate Act is flawed and comprised of unrealistic and unobtainable targets, writes US academic Roger A Pielke Jr, in a journal paper published today, 18 June, 2009, in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters

 
 
Institute of Physics News
IOP members honoured

Nine of the Institute’s members have been recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours for their contributions to science, education and industry

 
Institute of Physics News
New National STEM programme looks good for physics

Physics, chemistry, engineering and maths departments in universities receive a significant boost this week as the Higher Education Funding Councils for England (HEFCE) and Wales (HEFCW) announce the details behind a £20 million national programme that aims to increase the number of science graduates

 
 
Magnetic field
The Earth’s magnetic field remains a charged mystery

400 years of discussion and we’re still not sure what creates the Earth’s magnetic field, and thus the magnetosphere, despite the importance of the latter as the only buffer between us and deadly solar wind of charged particles (made up of electrons and protons). New research raises question marks about the forces behind the magnetic field and the structure of Earth itself

 
Institute of Physics News
Political reshuffle shifts responsibility for science

Following the reshuffle of Gordon Brown’s cabinet on Friday, 5 June, governmental responsibility for higher education and science research in the UK has now moved from the disbanded Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) to Peter Mandelson’s re-named Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)

 
 
More than just the tailpipe
More than just the tailpipe

Published today in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters, Monday, June 8, 2009, researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, have created a framework to help us calculate the true environmental cost of travel

 
The four shortlisted candidates
Rocket scientist takes career woman award

Four female early career physicists, family, colleagues, friends and members of the Institute of Physics (IOP)’s Women in Physics Group came to the Institute of Physics (IOP) on Wednesday, 27 May, to hear who would be awarded 2009’s Very Early Career Woman Award

 
 
Physics World
What if there is only one universe?

Lee Smolin, author of the bestselling science book The Trouble with Physics and a founding member and research physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, writes exclusively in the June issue of Physics World explaining why theories of cosmology that suggest that our universe is just one of many - the so-called multiverse - and thus perpetuate the notion that time does not exist are flawed

 
Professor Jim Al-Khalili
Marking centenary of Rutherford’s discovery in Cheltenham

"As incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you". This was Lord Rutherford' s description of the results published by Geiger and Marsden exactly one hundred years ago in June 1909

 
 
 
 

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Artwork | Image by Fred Swist