The most popular Physics Today articles of 2016

Brexit, string theory, and articles focused on 170 years in the past and 100 years into the future proved popular on Physics Today‘s website in 2016. But in the end, a unique take on procrastination came out on top. Here is a summary of this year’s most read stories.

Physics of the future: In April PT kicked off its Physics in 2116 essay contest, asking readers to predict the state of physics in 100 years. Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, who served as a judge, took a stab at the challenge by envisioning new kinds of symmetry, advanced quantum computing, and the detection of axions. His essay was the third most read Physics Today article of the year. In December, after reviewing nearly 200 entries, Wilczek and the other judges chose the winner: physics professor Robert Austin’s vision of a telescope between Mars and Jupiter built from polished asteroids.

Professional development: Readers showed lots of interest in articles that suggested topics or fields for physicists to explore. Famed physicist Edward Witten’s 2015 string theory tutorial was PT‘s second most read story of the year, and science historian Matt Stanley’s July 2016 essay advocating that physicists study history was sixth. Many readers took Stanley’s advice and learned what it took to get a PhD in the 1840s . Another popular essay encouraged particle physicists to head to the nearest preschool and help children learn their Gs and Qs (gluons and quarks, that is) to complement their ABCs.

Life’s important questions: Sure, we’d like to know why matter won out over antimatter, but what about the age-old question of why you can’t separate interleaved books ? It turns out that the amplified friction at work between those pages could be relevant for researchers studying biomolecular bonds and nanoscale mechanical devices. Readers also couldn’t help but explore how the sum of all positive integers could possibly be −1/12, as two scientists in a popular 2014 YouTube video claim.

Political science: In a year defined by two political shockers, it was impossible not to consider the implications for science policy and research. The day after the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, PT examined how Brexit would likely impact funding and collaborations throughout the Continent. Readers also checked out editor David Kramer’s primer on the science-related views of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In the new year PT expects to publish plenty of coverage of Trump’s policies on climate, energy, and space.

And the most read story of 2016: We all do it. So we might as well take comfort in the fact that even scientists seeking government funding leave important tasks to the very last minute. In PT‘s February issue, NSF program director Tomasz Durakiewicz broke down his ingenious “universal law of procrastination .” Recognizing the huge jump in the number of grant proposals he would receive just before a deadline, he plotted the data and found that they adhere to a simple modified hyperbolic function. Durakiewicz’s article is worth checking out—or at least saving for later.

Onward to 2017: Thanks for reading Physics Today in 2016, when there was plenty of other news and commentary online to draw your attention. As you may have noticed, PT recently changed over to a new, snazzier website. Stay tuned in the coming year for expanded coverage of the physical science community along with compelling visuals and multimedia.