Comment in 2024

In 1931, the psychoanalyst Carl Jung took on an unusual patient, the brilliant young physicist, Wolfgang Pauli. Arthur I. Miller tells the story of their friendship, how they impacted each other’s work, and reflects on creativity.

Science and society are inextricably entangled, but the discussion of social issues in optics and photonics is, at best, treated as peripheral to the field. A group of researchers, technicians, administrative staff, and clinical liaisons share how they came together to start a conversation recognizing these oft-disregarded issues.

Thierry Emonet and Massimo Vergassola discuss what research shows about how animals perform the feat of navigating by smell.

In an age of expensive experiments and hype around new data-driven methods, researchers understandably want to ensure they are gleaning as much insight from their data as possible. Rachel C. Kurchin argues that there is still plenty to be learned from older approaches without turning to black boxes.

The science of food is strongly connected to chemistry and sensory science, but chewing and swallowing is also governed by soft matter physics as it involves processing materials that are deformable, easily fractured or that melt at low temperatures. What can physics tell us about these processes, and what questions remain?

Women and people of colour are underrepresented in physics in many parts of the world, to the detriment of the field. How do academics’ beliefs about the role of ‘brilliance’ in career success contribute to these representation gaps, and what can be done to address them?