If scientists had sacred objects, this would be one of them: a single, closely guarded 137-year-old cylinder of metal, housed in a vault outside of Paris. It is a prototype that precisely defines a ...

Mutual attraction: why is it so difficult to pin down the gravitational constant? (Courtesy: iStock/FrankRamspott) Two extremely precise measurements of the gravitational constant G have yielded ...

Deluged by responses to his request for your favourite units, Robert P Crease discovers that non-SI units persist, and are sometimes even popular, among the physics community Setting the standard ...

Interferometry has become an indispensable diagnostic tool in plasma physics, enabling the precise measurement of electron densities and detailed imaging of plasma behaviour. By utilising the ...

Measurements in physics are funny things. You’d hope that attempts to quantify some of the fundamental properties of the Universe would follow a simple pattern ...

With a dedicated monthly column, Nature Physics draws attention to metrology. And a set of Commentaries in this issue focuses on various aspects of thermometry. Physics is all about observations, ...

The Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033 is underway. Please visit the following webpage to learn more: The Space Studies Board shall establish a Heliophysics Survey ...