Routine production of ultrahigh vacuum, new surface‐analytical techniques and more quantitative theories—all combine to open exciting prospects for the study and use of solid surfaces.
The intrinsic interest in an empty box is limited, however difficult the task of evacuating it may be. It is the new vistas in science and technology opened by the ability routinely to produce ultra‐high vacua as a controlled environment that excite our interest. The challenges of generating and measuring such vacua will be described in the following articles of this issue of PHYSICS TODAY. We devote our discussion to recent developments in the study of surface phenomena, an area of science that has been both a beneficiary of and contributor to advances in vacuum technology.
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With strong magnetic fields and intense lasers or pulsed electric currents, physicists can reconstruct the conditions inside astrophysical objects and create nuclear-fusion reactors.
A crude device for quantification shows how diverse aspects of distantly related organisms reflect the interplay of the same underlying physical factors.