Web Watch

http://www.phy.tu-dresden.de/~fermisur/

Using a method called linear combination of atomic orbitals, the University of Dresden’s Claudia Lehmann has calculated the Fermi Surfaces of the metallic elements and collected them on a Web site. Thanks to a Java applet, the site lets you view the individual Fermi sheets of each element, as well as the Fermi velocity and orbital character of the electronic states.

http://www.engineergirl.org

To encourage more girls to become engineers, the National Academy of Engineering has put together the Engineer Girl! Web site. Among the site’s offerings are descriptions of notable engineering achievements and an online form that can be used to submit questions to professional engineers.

http://tes.la.asu.edu

In June, a giant dust storm began blowing over the surface of Mars. Within two weeks, the storm had blanketed the entire planet, raising the temperature of the Martian atmosphere by 30 K. You can see a movie of this event on the Web site of the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES), one of the instruments on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor.

To suggest topics or sites for Web Watch, please e-mail us at ptwww@aip.org .