Abstract
THE Physical Society intends to hold a series of ordinary meetings at places outside London, and the first of these took place in the Physics Department of the University of Birmingham on December 20. This meeting, which took the form of a one-day conference under the general title “Fundamental Problems in Modern Physics”, was attended by about two hundred fellows of the Society and visitors from universities, government establishments and industrial firms. The morning session was devoted to three papers ; in the first, Prof. R. E. Peierls, of the University of Birmingham, discussed some of the outstanding difficulties of fundamental theoretical physics, and indicated the type of experimental evidence which would be most valuable in resolving them. He was followed by Mr. J. S. Gooden, also of the University of Birmingham, who read a paper on the design of a proton synchrotron, with special reference to the factors influencing the amplitude of phase oscillations of the particles and consequently affecting the intensity of the emergent beam. The third paper, by Mr. D. W. Fry, of the Telecommunications Research Establishment, dealt with some practical aspects of synchrotron design, in the light of experience gained with the three electron synchrotrons already under construction in Great Britain. A paper by Prof. J. Sayers, of the University of Birmingham, on recombination phenomena in highly ionized gases, opened the afternoon session ; Prof. Sayers was unfortunately not able to be present at the meeting, but his paper was read by Prof. P. B. Moon. The conference closed with a paper by Dr. F. Hoyle, of Cambridge, on the synthesis of heavy elements from hydrogen in stars, and their distribution throughout space.
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FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS IN MODERN PHYSICS. Nature 159, 117–119 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159117a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159117a0