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Deep inelastic scattering — using a twenty-first-century electron–hadron collider of sufficient energy and intensity — could teach us much more about nuclear matter at the smallest resolvable scales, as well as add to our understanding of the Higgs boson and to the search for physics beyond the standard model.
Any ambitious construction project requires architects and engineers. As research shifts towards large groups that focus on the engineering aspects of linking data to existing models, architectural skills are becoming rare among young theorists.
A class of two-terminal passive circuit elements that can also act as memories could be the building blocks of a form of massively parallel computation known as memcomputing.
The science of complex networks can be usefully applied in finance, although there is limited data available with which to develop our understanding. All is not lost, however: ideas from statistical physics make it possible to reconstruct details of a financial network from partial sets of information.
The intrinsic complexity of the financial derivatives market has emerged as both an incentive to engage in it, and a key source of its inherent instability. Regulators now faced with the challenge of taming this beast may find inspiration in the budding science of complex systems.
Understanding something of the complexity of a financial network is one thing, influencing the behaviour of that system is another. But new tools from network science define a notion of 'controllability' that, coupled with 'centrality', could prove useful to economists and financial regulators.
Our developing scientific understanding of complex networks is being usefully applied in a wide set of financial systems. What we've learned from the 2008 crisis could be the basis of better management of the economy — and a means to avert future disaster.
