Physics

The 2007 Rube Goldberg Contest

2007-04-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

For those who don't know about this 20th century cultural icon (or aren't old enough to remember), Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who was famous for drawing complicated machines to perform a simple task. There are some wonderful cartoons of his adventures here.

Purdue University's chapter of Theta Tau, a professional engineering fraternity, sponsors a nationwide contest for college students to see who can invent and assemble the most whimsical and complicated machine to carry out a given task . You can see a video of some of the machines in this year's competition.

Thanks to the Librarians' Index to the Internet for this heads-up!

New edition of CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics available online!

2006-04-20T08:56:00.000-04:00

Did you know that you can access the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics online through the UMass Amherst libraries?

Our online subscription has just been updated to the most recent (86th) edition of the handbook. Changes include:

- Includes seven important new tables and extensive updates and expansion of 20 others

- Incorporates substantial revisions to the Bond Dissociation Energy and Standard Transformed Gibbs Energy of Formation for Important Biochemical Species tables

- Updates the valuable Sources of Physical and Chemical Data appendix

New tables!

1. Vapor Pressure of the Metallic Elements
2. Electrical Conductivity of Aqueous Solutions
3. Proton Affinities
4. Electron Inelastic Mean Free Paths
5. Selected Properties of Semiconductor Solid Solutions
6. Vapor Pressures (Solvent Activities) for Binary Polymer Solutions
7. Density of Sulfuric Acid

To access the online version of the CRC Handbook, just visit the UMass Libraries homepage, click Databases, and navigate to C for CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.

Enjoy!

Springer Tracts in Modern Physics now online, 2000-present

2006-03-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

More new e-journals....the UMass Libraries now offer online access to Springer Tracts in Modern Physics, 2000 - present.

Europhysics Letters now available online

2006-03-27T14:18:00.000-05:00

The UMass Libraries have just set up online access to the journal Europhysics Letters, back through 1996. Enjoy!

arXiv Founder Paul Ginsparg Named Recipient of Paul Evan Peters Award

2006-02-27T08:40:00.000-05:00

News release from the Coalition for Networked Information:

Paul Ginsparg, physicist and Internet scholarly communications pioneer, is the latest recipient of the Paul Evan Peters Award, announced today by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE. The award will be presented on April 3, 2006, at the CNI Membership Meeting in Arlington, VA, where Ginsparg will deliver the Paul Peters Award lecture at the opening plenary. A professor of physics, computing and information science at Cornell University, Ginsparg has distinguished himself as the visionary behind arXiv (http://arxiv.org), an Internet e-print archive for articles in the sciences, which allows scholars to circulate and comment on research prior to publication in traditional peer-reviewed journals, thereby significantly reducing the amount of time it takes for an article to be available to researchers. Started in 1991 as a service for preprints in physics, arXiv eventually expanded to include mathematics, computer science and quantitative biology. Today, the resource boasts open access to over 350,000 articles.

"Paul Ginsparg's accomplishments as a theoretical physicist, alone, distinguish him as a superb scholar, but his innovations in scientific publication, for which the Paul Evan Peters award honors him, truly places him in the annals of history as a transformative figure who has changed the landscape of scholarly communication forever," remarked Ronald Larsen, Dean of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and a member of the award search committee. "This is a richly deserved award," Larsen continued, "that honors the legacy of Paul Evan Peters."

Commenting on how Ginsparg's brainchild has revolutionized science publishing, in the October 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope, author Richard Tresch Fienberg reports that papers published in more than a dozen major astronomy journals are twice as likely to be cited by other researchers if they have also appeared on arXiv. He observes, "Clearly, professional astronomers are gravitating toward [arXiv] as their primary—perhaps even exclusive—reference source." Expressing this view directly as part of the 2001 UNESCO Expert Conference Electronic Publishing in Science, Ginsparg wrote, "The essential question for 'Electronic Publishing in Science' is how our scientific research communications infrastructure should be reconfigured to take maximal advantage of newly evolving electronic resources."

Full announcement, via ARL Announces

Best-sellers in Physics, 2005

2006-02-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

Which physics books were flying off the shelves last year? YBP Library Services has released the following list of physics best-sellers for 2005. Titles owned by UMass libraries have clickable links that will bring you to their library catalog records. Think we should own a title on this list? Let us know! Happy reading.

Best Sellers in Physics, January–December 2005, as compiled by YBP Library Services

1. Plows, Plagues, And Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate
Ruddiman, W. F.
Princeton U. Press
2005. ISBN 0691121648. $24.95

2. It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity
Mermin, N. David
Princeton U. Press
2005. ISBN 0691122016. $29.95

3. Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes
Emanuel, Kerry A.
Oxford U. Press
2005. ISBN 0195149416. $45.00

4. Einstein on Race and Racism
Jerome, Fred
Rutgers U. Press
2005. ISBN 0813536170. $23.95

5. The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race
McMillan, Priscilla Johnson
Viking
2005. ISBN 0670034223. $25.95

6. Knowing: The Nature of Physical Law
Munowitz, M.
Oxford U. Press
2005. ISBN 0195167376. $35.00

7. The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics
Oerter, Robert
Prentice Hall
2006. ISBN 0132366789. $24.95

8. Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
Randall, Lisa
Ecco
2005. ISBN 0060531088. $27.95

9. Environmental Change: Key Issues and Alternative Approaches
Oldfield, Frank
Cambridge U. Press
2005. ISBN 0521829364. $120.00

10. Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
Susskind, Leonard
Little, Brown
2006. ISBN 0316155799. $24.95

11. Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains
Bowen, Mark
Henry Holt
2005. ISBN 0805064435. $30.00

12. Worlds of Flow: A History of Hydrodynamics from the Bernoullis to Prandtl
Darrigol, Olivier
Oxford U. Press
2005. ISBN 0198568436. $74.50

13. Ozone Depletion and Climate Change: Constructing a Global Response
Hoffman, Matthew J.
State U. of New York Press
2005. ISBN 079146525x. $81.50

14. Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance
Gosnell, Mariana
Alfred A. Knopf
2005. ISBN 0679426086. $30.00

15. Thermodynamics: A Dynamical Systems Approach
Haddad, Wassim M.
Princeton U. Press
2005. ISBN 0691123276. $49.50

16. Weighing the World: The Quest to Measure the Earth
Danson, Edwin
Oxford U. Press
2006. ISBN 0195181697. $29.95

17. Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos
Chaisson, Eric
Columbia U. Press
2006. ISBN 0231135602. $34.50

18. Electromagnetic Processes
Gould, Robert J.
Princeton U. Press
2006. ISBN 0691124434. $89.50

19. Quantum Wells, Wires and Dots: Theoretical and Computational Physics of Semiconductor Nanostructures
Harrison, Paul
John Wiley
2005. ISBN 0470010797. $150.00

20. Pauli's Exclusion Principle: The Origin and Validation of a Scientific Principle
Massimi, Michela
Cambridge U. Press
2005. ISBN 0521839114. $75.00

New e-journal @ UMass Libraries

2006-02-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

The full text of the following journal is newly available through the UMass library catalog. Enjoy!

International journal of hydrogen energy (1998-)

Faraday Discussions on Nanotechnology

2006-01-12T13:19:00.000-05:00

The most recent Faraday Discussions from the Royal Society of Chemistry focuses on nanotechnology--more specifically, molecular wires and nanoscale conductors. UMass Amherst users have online access to Faraday Discussions via the library catalog, and RSC has also made several articles from this issue freely available to all.

If you use feedreader software like My Yahoo, Bloglines, or FeedDemon, you can subscribe to RSS feeds for RSC journals, including Faraday Discussions--more info.

(via Dana Roth, PAMNet)

New physics handbook @ ISEL

2006-01-09T14:43:00.000-05:00

Just in at ISEL:

Gordon W.F. Drake, ed.
Springer Handbook of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. With CD-ROM, 288 Figures, and 111 Tables.
Springer, 2006.

About this book (from Springer)
Amazon info & reviews

You can find this book in the ISEL Reference Collection, call no. Science Ref QC 173 .S599 2006.

2006 Graduate Programs in Physics....

2005-12-20T15:51:00.000-05:00

Just received at ISEL: the 2006 edition of Graduate Programs in Physics, Astronomy, and Related Fields.

You can find this book in the Reference Collection, call number QC 30 .A54 2006.

Einstein posting to arXiv?!?

2005-12-01T18:42:00.000-05:00

From Open Access News:

In 1922, Albert Einstein [wrote] a paper on the superconductibity of metals that he never published. After presenting it at a Dutch symposium, he apparently forgot about it and so did everyone else --until this year, when Cornell physicist Neal Ashcroft rediscovered it in a Dutch library. If you were Ashcroft, what you do then? What would Einstein do? That's right, deposit it in arXiv. (The deposited copy is an English translation by Björn Schmekel.) For details, see yesterday's story in LinuxElectrons.

New e-journal content @ UMass Libraries

2005-10-26T10:53:00.000-04:00

The journal Advances in theoretical and mathematical physics (2003-) is now available online through the UMass Amherst libraries. Enjoy!

ICTP Open Access Archive for e-Prints

2005-10-14T13:38:00.000-04:00

Physicists working in developing countries have a new outlet for sharing their research. The ICTP Open Access Archive has just been launched by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).

From the KnowledgeSpeak Newsletter:

Very often, scientists in developing countries are not aware of the nature and extent of scientific experiments being pursued in their regions owing to working in isolation. Moreover the scientists find it difficult to publicize their work quickly.
In order to assist in such matters, the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has organized an Open Access Archive. Here, scientists from various countries can post their scientific work without incurring any charge. Pre-prints, reprints, seminar papers, pre-publication book chapters and Curriculum Vitae of the authors can also be uploaded. The copyright agreement of the previously published work must be reviewed with the publishers before archiving.

Nature Physics: free access to first issue

2005-10-11T17:33:00.000-04:00

Nature Publishing Group has launched a new physics journal, Nature Physics. From the About the journal page:

Nature Physics publishes papers of the highest quality and significance in all areas of physics, pure and applied. The journal content reflects core physics disciplines, but is also open to a broad range of topics whose central theme falls within the bounds of physics. Theoretical physics, particularly where it is pertinent to experiment, also features.

Nature is offering free access to the inaugural issue of this new title: Nature Physics, Volume 1, Issue 1. Included is an editorial explaining the rationale for and purpose of the new journal.

2005 Nobel Prize in Physics

2005-10-05T09:45:00.000-04:00

Nobelprize.org has details of the 2005 award for Physics, presented to Roy J. Glauber "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence" and John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique."

Encyclopedia of Condensed Matter Physics

2005-10-03T13:21:00.000-04:00

The impressive new six-volume Encyclopedia of Condensed Matter Physics (catalog record; book description) has just arrived at ISEL and is now shelved in our reference collection (Science Ref QC 173.454 .E53 2005).

Encyclopedia of Modern Optics now at ISEL

2005-09-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

The newest physics addition to ISEL's reference shelves is the five-volume Encyclopedia of Modern Optics (Science Ref QC 351.2 .E53 2005). From the preface: "The purpose of this Encyclopedia is to provide a resource for introducing optical fundamentals and technologies to the general technical audience for whom optics is a key capability in exploring their field of interest."

Living Reviews

2005-09-17T14:05:00.000-04:00

Two open-access journals that have been around for a while, but which I just learned about, are Living Reviews in Relativity and Living Reviews in Solar Physics.

A description of the Living Reviews concept, from their website:

Articles are solicited from leading authorities and are intended for physicists at or above the graduate-student level. The Articles in Living Reviews provide up-to-date critical reviews of the state of research in the fields they cover. Articles also offer annotated insights (and where possible, active links) into the key literature and describe online resources available in these fields. Living Reviews is unique in maintaining a suite of high-quality reviews; its articles are subjected to strict peer-review and are kept up-to-date by the authors. This is the meaning of the word "Living" in the journal's title.

Blogging arXiv

2005-08-26T14:28:00.000-04:00

Any physicists or researchers in related fields who are using RSS will no doubt be interested in the following:

Crooked Timber >> >> Blogging arXiv:
"Non-physicists may not be familiar with arXiv....it’s effectively replaced journal publication as the primary means for physicists to communicate with each other. Journal publication is still important – but as an imprimatur, a proof of quality, rather than a way to disseminate findings to a wider audience. arXiv has now introduced trackbacks – people visiting the abstract of a paper on arXiv can see what blogs have commented on the paper, and read what they have had to say. Furthermore, arXiv has rss feeds of recent papers, classified by subject matter, making it much easier to keep up with new publications in a subfield."