Editorials

Many everyday English words have a double meaning, being used as physics jargon. This month, we share some of our favourite stories of how physics terms came to be.

Good writing is about having something interesting and original to say. Generative AI tools might provide technical help, but they are no substitute for your unique perspective.

For Nature Reviews journals, the simplistic notion of high–low impact measured by citation-based metrics is inadequate. Instead, we should understand who is using these journals, and how.

As Nature Reviews Physics reaches its fifth birthday, we celebrate just how much high-quality content we have published so far, thanks to our authors, referees, in-house team and readers.

As we close volume 5 of Nature Reviews Physics, here are some highlights of the past year.

In November, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who and challenge our readers with a quiz to spot the real physics terms amid the science fiction.

Making physics environmentally sustainable requires changes at all levels — individual, institutional and systemic — and all physicists have the chance to act, regardless of career stage. What needs to happen, and how can you get involved?

We ask how peer review will adapt as the ways physicists work undergo rapid changes.

Why are we enlisting an Advisory Board, and who are the first members?

As we go into the Northern Hemisphere summer beach reads season — and the Southern Hemisphere winter fireside time — we share five biographical books we’ve been reading recently.

In the June issue we celebrate the past and present of quantum physics and try to imagine its future.

How should scientists talk about AI systems? Here is how we will approach the editing of such language to ensure clarity, accuracy and avoid misinterpretation and anthropomorphism.

A glass of your preferred carbonated drink — whether beer, champagne or soda — holds some fascinating physics. This month, we share some of our favourite bubbly phenomena.

Physics has an undeniable environmental cost, which sits uncomfortably with the climate and sustainability concerns of many physicists. How can you respond?

Data sharing has been a success for large collaborations like CERN and LIGO. But what about small research groups with bespoke experimental setups?

As we start volume 5 of Nature Reviews Physics we introduce the team behind the journal.

As physicists are increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence (AI) methods in their research, we ponder the role of human beings in future scientific discoveries. Will we be guides to AI, or be guided by it?

“Girls don’t like physics” is a common refrain, but this perception has not always existed, nor does it occur everywhere in the world today. We call on our readers to fight such unfounded stereotypes.

Travelling by train rather than plane when possible is a key way to reduce the carbon footprint associated with conferences. Here are some things we’ve learned about how it works in practice.

To celebrate the Ig Nobel prizes traditionally awarded in September — honouring research that “first makes people laugh and then think” — we collected some examples of unusual noise sources in physics experiments.