Physics

This exhibit traces the development of the atomic age from the discovery of radioactivity in the late 1800s to the close of the Cold War near the end of the twentieth century. In so doing, the exhibit discusses the scientific, political and cultural ramifications of nuclear energy while at the same time acting as a learning curriculum for those interested in furthering their studies of the era. The exhibit narrative and images have been developed through extensive use of the History of Atomic Energy Collection at Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections.

"The American Physical Society's Committee on the Status of Women in Physics and its Forum on the History of Physics cosponsored development of the archive...in 1999... This site contains guides to the archive, a search engine, "fascinating documents" (a mixture of obituaries, scientific treatises, and correspondence), a few unrefereed articles on the history of women in physics, quotations, and a database of reference books and journal articles... Most of the site...is devoted to the 86 women from subfields such as astrophysics, atomic physics, crystallography, education, fluid dynamics, mathematical physics, and nuclear physics. Physicists profiled include Marie Curie, Helen Edwards, Shirley Jackson, Maria Mayer, and Vera Rubin. Each biography page contains a photograph of the physicist, her major contributions and publications, honors, employment, education, additional information, and recommended reading. Factual information is brief but correct." (Choice Reviews online, July 2007)

"This comprehensive open-access encyclopedia, authored by Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta and provided by RP Photonics Consulting GmbH, explains the terms and principles of laser physics and technology. It also has a lot of content from other topics such as general optics and optoelectronics, nonlinear optics, quantum optics, fiber optics, ultrashort pulses, and optical communications."

"The International Nuclear Information System (INIS), the world's largest database of nuclear scientific/technical literature, covers a broad range of subjects in the areas of nuclear engineering, safeguards, and nonproliferation. The database contains over three million bibliographic citations and abstracts in 63 languages from a wide range of publications. Included are journal articles (13,500-plus journal titles are indexed), scientific/technical reports, conference papers, books, patents, theses, laws, regulations/standards, and Web documents. INIS has over 200,000 full-text documents (many are not readily available elsewhere). Institutions with subscriptions to the database's electronic journals can access the full text of journal articles via DOI (digital object identifier) links. The database was made available free to all Internet users in April 2009. Plans are to add 100,000 new records annually.

The INIS database is fast, intuitive, and very easy to use. A Google-like search box gives users the option of limiting to full text only and customizing the number of search results that display. Advanced searching and combining queries are also possibilities. The main screen features other useful information, including Recent Statistics and Predefined Queries, with subject distribution for the newest uploads, and numbers of new journal articles, along with the journals in which they most frequently appear. Search results include the document title and can be expanded to a full citation for an individual entry or for all records on the result screen. Creating a free profile enables a user to store queries. Records may be printed or exported to HTML, tab-delimited text, formatted text, XML, or MS Excel, and citations downloaded to bibliographic management software. An excellent addition is the INIS Multilingual Thesaurus in all the official languages of the International Atomic Energy Agency: Arabic, Chinese, English, German, French, Russian, and Spanish." from Choice June, 2010.

"The types of light sources covered in this Web site are accelerator- and synchrotron-based "sources of exceptionally intense, tightly focused beams of x-rays and ultraviolet radiation, as well as infrared, that make possible both basic and applied research in fields from physics to biology to technology." Many governmental, nonprofit, and educational scientific laboratories throughout the world contribute to LightSources.org. The site's main page lists four major sections: Learn about Light Sources, Light Source News, Light Source Science, and For Light Source Users. There are duplicate links to some of the information in these sections on the left side of the screen. Undergraduate students will benefit from the light source primers and links to educational materials. For graduate students, the list of conferences and the links to the technical publications of the supporting agencies are informative. One can subscribe to the site's news flashes by e-mail or through an RSS reader. LightSources.org also contains an Image Bank with basic search options.

In general, however, the site needs some updating. For example, the biographies in the Case Study Series section under Light Sources Research are interesting, but this page has not been updated in over a year. There are dead links in both the Journals section (e.g., Nature Publishing Group, ACS Publications, ISI Web of Science) and the Publishers section (e.g., CARL, BioMedNet). Additionally, some information in the Reference Sources section is dated or unavailable. The Electron Microscopy glossary from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln is from 1995, and the link to Life Science cannot be found. Most pages do not list an author, but users can contact the Webmaster with questions or comments. Overall, this site is useful but would benefit by some regular maintenance and updating." Choice April, 2010.

"Published and owned by Nanowerk LLC, the Nanowerk site is a very comprehensive and educational nanotechnology/nanoscience portal. It delivers very current news and information that is rich in scope and content. The well-organized home page, with sections titled Databases, News, Nanobusiness, Resources, and Introduction to Nanotechnology, provides clear links to the site's content. A free, searchable Nanomaterial Database provides information on more than 1,900 materials, and a Company and Labs Directory offers more than 3,000 links. Also available are a conference calendar, video library, free industry reports, periodical directory, and book lists linked to Amazon.com. A site map, search box feature, and easy navigation scheme mean that users can locate information quickly. The site also offers a Spotlight feature article, an encyclopedia, blogs, quizzes, career center, and Nanotalk community forum."

Find links to physical reference data, constants and measurements and check out the official U.S. time. The site includes links to NIST conferences and news.

"This is the official Web site of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a laboratory of the US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. NREL's main focus is research and development in renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as in technology transfer. The site has an easy-to-navigate design. For example, it contains useful, clearly visible navigation tools such as the search box, a site map, and a link to contact information complete with phone numbers and addresses. The site incorporates Web 2.0 tools including RSS news feeds and the ability to follow the site via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

A series of blue tabs across the top of the screen divides the site into sections: About NREL, Energy Analysis, Science and Technology, Technology Transfer, and Applying Technologies. Under each tab are brief descriptions about NREL's activities in each area along with links to more detailed information. A section titled Learning about Renewables, with a listing of resources for secondary school and college students, appears after a user clicks on one of the former sections. Related news and events are listed on the sidebar of some pages. The site offers detailed information about NREL's research areas, such as advanced fuels and vehicles research and geothermal energy. Other useful resources include the Photographic Information eXchange (PIX), GIS maps and data, and a searchable publications database containing various documents (technical reports, conference papers, books, articles, etc.) from 1977 to the present. The NREL Web site is an important resource for anyone doing research or wanting to learn more about renewable energy and energy efficiency." from Choice June, 2010.

"Physics to Go, a product of the American Physical Society, is a unit of the ComPADRE Digital Library http://www.compadre.org/ (CH, Jul'09, 46-6261). The site is both a biweekly online "mini-magazine" and a collection of more than 800 searchable and browsable Web sites, with several links to resources that allow users to learn physics through games, Webcasts, and classroom activities. For anyone interested in learning about the physical universe, the site is a veritable treasure trove of information and an excellent resource for exploration.

The main page is divided into major sections: Physics in Your World, From Physics Research, Physics at Home, and Worth a Look. Archives go back to 2006, when the magazine first began publication. Search options are quite good. Users can search just Physics to Go or the entire ComPADRE site using keywords or the advanced search option. Advanced searching allows users to limit searches by content, grade level, or audience (e.g., student, parent, teacher). Physics to Go also encourages visitors to register for free and contribute to discussions, recommend content, and organize information retrieved in a "personal filing cabinet." There is no end to the information about Earth's physical surroundings that one can glean from Physics to Go; it covers everything of current interest, including the latest developments in research. The site is well organized and up-to-date and contains excellent graphics; the information provided is reliable, and navigation is easy. It is a wonderful resource for undergraduate students of physics." from Choice March 2010.

Produced by the Institute of Physics, this is a great source for job listings, conference information and news on all topics of physics. A resource page links to exercises, reference materials, organizations as well as physics humor.

Scholarpedia is an open access source for articles in the fields of computational neuroscience, dynamical systems, computational intelligence, physics and astrophysics. "Scholarpedia feels and looks like Wikipedia -- the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Indeed, both are powered by the same program -- MediaWiki. Both allow visitors to review and modify articles simply by clicking on the edit this article link.
However, Scholarpedia differs from Wikipedia in some very important ways:

Each article is written by an expert (elected by the public or invited by Scholarpedia editors).

Each article is anonymously peer reviewed to ensure accurate and reliable information.

Each article has a curator -- typically its author -- who is responsible for its content."

Any modification of the article needs to be approved by the curator before it appears in the final, approved version.

"'Science.gov searches over 36 databases and 1,850 selected websites, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information, including research and development results.' Content is provided by 13 federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The site offers both basic keyword and advanced search options. Searching across one or all 12 topics yields ranked results that are clustered by subtopic or date, have links to Wikipedia, and may be sorted by date, title, or author. A summary of all results ranks the sources used in the search. Refining the search, limiting the results, or creating an alert is available from the results page. In addition to searching the entire site for documents, users can explore selected science Web sites from the home page. Sites are selected by information specialists/librarians, and each component is regularly updated. The subject categories on the home page provide links to a wide variety of sites. The main page also includes featured searches and Web sites and links to special collections, including special terminology and thesauri from sources such as DTIC, MeSH, USGS, ERIC, and DOE." from Choice, April 2009

"ScienceBlogs provides access to more than 70 blogs by selected leading bloggers from a wide variety of scientific disciplines. The scope is quite broad; topics range from women in science to bisphenol A. ScienceBlogs was launched in January 2006 by Seed Media Group, which also publishes the scientific magazine Seed. Seed Media Group was founded in 2005 by Adam Bly (formerly, National Research Council of Canada). Bloggers are selected 'based on their originality, insight, talent, and dedication.' Selected bloggers include professors in scientific disciplines, a freelance science journalist, and more. ScienceBlogs staff do not edit the bloggers' work.

Excellent site organization enables users to easily browse or search for blogs, which are organized by ten channels of content: Life Science, Physical Science, Environment, Humanities and Social Science, Education and Careers, Politics, Medicine and Health, Brain and Behavior, Technology, and Last 24 Hours (most recent posts). Special features include Top 5 Readers' Picks, direct links to the science news section of The New York Times online, RSS feeds including 'ScienceBlogs posts analyzing peer-reviewed journal articles,' e-mail notification of specific blogs or channels, Page 3.14 Editorial Musings, Ask a Science Blogger, and ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap (a newsletter that can be mailed to users' inboxes). The site loads fairly quickly and features only a few advertisements." from Choice, May 2009.

"Answering your hypothetical questions with physics, every Tuesday." . . . with comics.

"ComPADRE, part of the National Science Digital Library http://nsdl.org/ (CH, Sup'05,42Sup-0494), is a partnership of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Physics/Society of Physics Students, and the American Physical Society. ComPADRE's goal is to steward high-quality digital resources in physics/astronomy education. The site's collections provide tips, techniques/manuals, and equipment for the laboratory experience; classifieds for equipment sought; resources and support for K-20 instructors/teachers; and simulations, curriculum, and computational tools. The collections also offer resources for education research; a community portal for undergraduates, including summer research and scholarship opportunities and textbook reviews; and Web-, monograph-, and journal-based resources for learning and exploring physics/astronomy. Each collection has its own look and internal navigation.

The collections can be browsed from the main Web page by categories: K-12 Teacher, College Faculty, Student, Educational Research, and Interested in Physics. One can search the entire site using a simple keyword search or conduct an advanced search, which allows limits based on subject, cost, resource type, and target level and role. Individual resources within each category note the intended academic levels and audience, and similar materials are identified and linked together. Not all resources are freely available, but access rights and restrictions are clearly noted. Users who create accounts on the comPADRE site may rate and comment on the various resources and participate in discussion boards. They can also make folders in a personal filing cabinet to store bookmarks to resources. ComPADRE is an important Web portal/database for both teachers and learners, and it more than fulfills its goal of offering high-quality resources in physics/astronomy." Choice, July 2009.