Since 1970, physics professors at Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary, have run the Rudolf Ortvay Competition in Physics. The problems, which are pitched at the high-school level, are designed to test physical reasoning at its most flexible and imaginative. This year’s contest starts on 27 October.
On 11 January 1952, Oak Ridge National Laboratory created a new research division devoted to the solid state. Mike Wilkinson, who directed the division in 1972–86, recounts in his online History of the Solid State Division how the division’s focus has broadened and flourished over the years.
The sometimes violent and damaging fluctuations in Earth’s magnetohydrodynamic environment are the subject of Space Weather , Sten Odenwald’s extensive online tutorial.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
This Content Appeared In
Volume 59, Number 10
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