History of XXI Century Physics| History of XXI Century Physics |
General News, Status
* 2001: Light pulses temporarily
trapped in a gas of cold atoms; Evidence reported for a change in the fine-structure
constant over cosmological times.
* 2002: Production of large numbers of anti-atoms
at CERN; First measurement of the polarization of the cosmic background radiation by DASI.
* 2003: First detailed full-sky map of the
cosmic microwave background; First evidence for pentaquarks.
* 2004: First double pulsar discovered;
Gravity Probe-B launched.
* 2005: International year of physics
(centenary of 1905); Death of Hans Bethe.
* 2006: Discovery that water flows
occasionally on Mars; First invisibility cloak; Manipulation of materials at quantum level.
* 2007: Large-scale dark-matter map;
Debate on nature of supersolids; Proposal of 'unparticles'; Origin of UHECRs.
* 2008: LHC begins operation – then stops.
* 2011: Weak measurements to map photon
trajectories in a double-slit experiment; Supermassive black holes as standard candles; OPERA
reports neutrino travel time less than light travel time between CERN and Gran Sasso; Hints
of Higgs particles at the LHC; New kg standard.
* 2012: Discovery of the Higgs boson; Neutrinos
are no longer superluminal; New estimate of at least 100 billion planets in the Milky Way
galaxy; Pioneer's anomalous acceleration explained; Report of no dark matter in the solar
neighborhood in the Milky Way, but later estimate differs; Suprisingly few neutrinos from GRBs;
Evidence for Majorana fermions in 2D condensed matter system; First observation of the kinematic
SZ effect; Demonstration of neutrino-based communication; Curiosity lands safely on Mars.
* 2013: The Higgs particle looks as expected,
and does not point the way to new physics; A minority of physicists think that SUSY will provide
a solution to the hierarchy problem; Most think that dark matter will be detected within the next
decade and will provide important new physics; High-energy cosmic neutrinos observed by the IceCube
South Pole Neutrino Observatory; Planck space telescope's map of the cmb.
* 2014: Discovery by BICEP2 of evidence for inflation
and imprint of gravitational waves in cmb polarization, later challenged; Hint of departure from
the standard model of particle physics seen in results from a test of lepton universality.
* 2015: Physicists are looking for
supersymmetric particles, gravitational waves, unparticles, dark matter and dark energy.
* 2016: Announcement by LIGO of the direct detection
of a gravitational-wave signal; Demonstration of Schrödinger cat state with microwave photons
in two cavities; Rocky planet around Proxima Cen; Negative refraction of electrons in graphene;
4 newly named elements; A ninth planet?
* 2017: Neutron-star merger seen in gravitational
waves and all electromagnetic frequency ranges, multimessenger astronomy; Again no evidence for WIMPs;
Gluons provide half of the proton's spin; Cuprate superconductors may be conventional after all; Time
crystals realized.
* 2018: High-energy neutrino spotted by IceCube in
2017 traced to a blazar.
* 2019: First image of a black hole; Quantum supremacy.
@ Yearly highlights:
news pw(01)dec [2001];
news pw(02)dec [2002];
news pw(03)dec [2003];
news pw(04)dec [2004];
news pw(05)dec [2005];
news pw(06)dec [2006];
news pw(07)dec [2007];
news pn(08)dec,
pw(08)dec [2008];
news pw(09)dec [2009];
pw(09)dec [2010 predictions];
pw(10)dec [2010];
pw(11)dec [2011];
pw(12)dec [2012];
pw(13)dec,
Phy(13)dec [2013];
Phy(14)dec [2014];
pw(16)dec,
sn(16)dec [2016];
news cosmos(17)dec [neutron star merger as breakthrough of the year];
Phys(17) [highlights];
Phys(18) [highlights];
Phys(19) [highlights].
@ Status, overviews: Linder PoS-a0810 ["beyond Einstein" puzzles and possibilities];
news ns(13)oct [status];
Hofer a1311-proc
[future synthesis of wave mechanics and density functional theory];
Wilczek PT(16)apr-a1503-talk [physics in 100 years];
blog pt(15)sep [hot topics].
Specific Countries, Institutions, and People > s.a. XX century.
@ Countries: Day PT(10)mar [China].
@ Institutions: news pw(07)jun [Howard Burton quits PI].
@ Universities:
news ihe(13)oct [threatened physics departments].
main page
– abbreviations
– journals – comments
– other sites – acknowledgements
send feedback and suggestions to bombelli at olemiss.edu – modified 17 dec 2019