Nature Physics - Current issue : July 2009 - Vol 5 No 7
- Cavity QED with ion crystals
- Laboratory astrophysics: Making reconnections
- Surface plasmon polaritons: Large-scale wave—particle duality
- Optomechanics: Race to the quantum limit
Latest highlights
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Atom chips
Article by Böhi et al.Simultaneous coherent control of internal and motional states of a Bose–Einstein condensate has been demonstrated on an 'atom chip'.
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Friction
Letter by Hedgeland et al.A picosecond technique for measuring the kinetic friction of a single benzene molecule on graphite reveals continuous Brownian motion, rather than the jerky hopping observed on most other surfaces.
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Water
Letter by Xu et al.The Stokes–Einstein equation relates the self-diffusion constant of a liquid to the mobility of its constituents. In water, however, the relation has to be modified for temperatures below ~290 K. A combined experimental and numerical investigation suggests that this behaviour results from a specific change in the local water structure.
Advance online publication
Qubits
Article by Lundblad et al.A quantum computer requires quantum systems that are well-isolated from external perturbations, but which can still be easily manipulated with external fields. A scheme that uses spatially inhomogeneous fields to selectively address neutral-atom qubits while they are in field-insensitive superposition states satisfies these competing needs.
Current issue
Cargo-cult science redux
Book review by NormanPlastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World By Eugenie Samuel Reich:
"In his commencement address at Caltech in 1974, Richard Feynman talked about how, after the Second World War, South Sea Islanders built imitation runways, and then waited for the aeroplanes to come with all the goodies they had seen during the war. Of course, the planes never came, despite the increasingly elaborate attempts of the 'cargo cult' to mimic the runways in greater and greater detail. I wonder what Mr Feynman would have thought of Mr Schön..."
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EditorialCurrent issue
Final answer?
Thesis by Buchanan"Most non-physicists don't appreciate just how rare definitive experiments really are, especially for experiments probing physical phenomena at the boundary of what can be controlled and measured, which is where the greatest interest always lies. The hardest things to measure always tend to be the most open to debate. ... Indeed, it's time we paid closer attention to the real history, rather than folklore history, of how science works. Truth doesn't emerge from experiment fully grown, in one startling leap, but does so much less gracefully, trailing irritating but interesting contradictions along the way."
Current issue
The full story
EditorialNature Physics no longer accepts presubmission enquiries — please send us your full manuscript, through our online submission system, to be assessed in all its glory.
Current issue
From the recent literature
Research HighlightsOur 'research highlights' summarize some of the most interesting, or intriguing, developments reported in the physics literature. This month: gaps filled, an ending foretold, and why breaking up is easy to do...


