
Physics Today is temporarily making its archive freely available - happy-go-lucky
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/journal/pto
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cozzyd
I get Physics Today every month (since I'm an APS member). One of my favorite
things about it, strangely, is the ads.

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Ididntdothis
I assume they are targeted ads for physicists? I remember “fondly” the times
when a website about kiteboarding would serve kiteboarding ads. Those were
actually very useful. Now they are showing more blenders after I just bought
one.

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gladskdks
This is the big issue with ad networks (well, after the tracking).

I used to read a lot of geeky blogs when I was younger and they would
advertise stuff that I thought was cool - gadgets and doodads mostly.

I went back to a couple of those sites this year and the ads are now mostly
for single women in my area -_-

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achillesheels
May I humbly recommend a terrific summary of the Davisson Germer experiment?
[1] It is a great biographical summary of developing the experiment itself,
with some experimental data not published elsewhere online of the electron
diffraction phenomenon.

[1]
[https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.3001830](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.3001830)

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sitkack
The design of the experiment is often as important as the result. It opens up
a whole avenue of discovery as the same technique is applied to other
problems.

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tacon
My favorite article ever in Physics Today: "The Urinary Drop Spectrometer"[0],
and a followup note ("Urinary Drops Again") suggesting an audio version[1].

"Information from the external urine stream permits early, painless diagnosis
of obstructions with an optical instrument developed by an interdisciplinary
group."

Japanese toilet models now have this kind of instrumentation, but the idea lay
dormant for decades. I wonder if anyone has tried the audio version in the
followup? Spectrometry on a stream of drops was _hard_ in 1974, and relatively
easy today. If I could avoid another kidney stone, I'd pee into almost
anything.

[0]
[https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3128862](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3128862)

[1]
[https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3069186](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3069186)

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tacon
My second favorite article in Physics Today, at the same time hilarious and
chilling, was the transcription of a talk by Irving Langmuir of GE Labs in
1953. In it he gives a first person account of just how badly an esteemed
scientist can fool himself. Consider it a brilliant example of Feynman's
advice that you are the easiest person to fool. Of course, the same
psychological process is going on in countless entrepreneurs as they convince
themselves that they are on to the next unicorn.

Pathological Science: Certain symptoms seen in studies of ‘N rays’ and other
elusive phenomena characterize 'the science of things that aren't so.’

[0]
[https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.881205](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.881205)

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anton_tarasenko
The AIP also maintain free access to their oral histories:
[https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-
library/oral...](https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-
histories/)

They interviewed many famous physicists. Mostly autobiographical, but unlike
in books, the interviewees don't have time to edit the answer, so the reading
experience is generally better.

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fareesh
What is a good resource to learn physics online? Mostly interested in
understanding how stuff works not really interested in solving physics
problems.

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cambalache
You wont understand how stuff "works" if you cannot solve problems, at least
not in any meaningful sense.If you want a superficial knowledge (Nothing wrong
with that) you have youtube channels or there are conceptual physics textbooks
for non science majors.

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causality0
I disagree. You can grasp the meaning of pv=nrt without memorizing the value
of r. You can understand that electrons exist in probability shells without
remembering what atomic number the d orbital starts at. You can understand
that e=mv^2 is only an approximation that works at low velocities without
being able to do a Lorentz transform.

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cambalache
> You can grasp the meaning of pv=nrt without memorizing the value of r.

Do you actually think that memorizing physical constant values is solving
problems?And ,yes, anybody can grasp what PV= nRT means,but what about stuff
like: "The average speed of the molecules doubled, what is the temperature
now"."Derive the relation between pressure and height for an ideal gas and use
it to estimate at which height the atmospheric pressure halves".Interesting
stuff like that and not plugging numbers in a formula.

> you can understand that electrons exist in probability shells without
> remembering what atomic number the d orbital starts at

The d orbital "starts" at n=1. Hydrogen has d orbitals.You are confusing
orbital existence with the occupation of them by electrons.

> You can understand that e=mv^2 is only an approximation that works at low
> velocities without being able to do a Lorentz transform.

The e = mv^2 you propose here is not an actual formula in physics. It is
either Ek = (1/2)mv^2 in classical physics, so just kinetic energy, or E
=mc^2+mv^2/(1-gamma^2)^(1/2) in special relativity. Which of course at low
velocities is approximated by E= mc^2 + 0.5mv^2 the second term being the Ek
as calculated in the classical theory.

I think your comment shows beautifully what I meant with my original
assertion.

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jlarcombe
Really great magazine, my wife used to have a subscription and it was
consistently readable and fascinating to an 'educated layman' (maths and
computing degree but no real physics knowledge beyond reading a bit and doing
it at school).

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artvandelay1240
Any recommendation for similar resources for computer science?

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krowfromthewall
ACM is providing free access to its platform till July (requires
registration). There are lots of computer science research papers and journals
there.

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LordOfWolves
It’d be great if we could actually archive this “archive”, but alas, it is
behind a (temporarily disabled) paywall, which first requires user
registration and login.

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Alekanekelo
You will have to register to Scitation and the free access is only temporary.

> Scientists and students in affected regions can now register on
> Scitation.org to activate temporary free full-text access to content through
> April 30, 2020.

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ISL
Hm. 4/30 was yesterday.

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ConsiderCrying
Perhaps a misprint and they meant either 5/30 or 2021?

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the_arun
> AIP Publishing is making our content freely available to scientists who
> register on Scitation.

