These are Good articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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Image 1Adriana C. Ocampo Uria (born January 5, 1955) is a Colombian-Argentinian-American
planetary geologist and a former science program manager at
NASA. In 1970, Ocampo emigrated to California and completed her Bachelor in Science at California State University, Los Angeles, Master in Sciences at
California State University, Northridge and finished her PhD at the
Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. During high school and graduate studies she worked at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she served as the science coordinator for many planetary missions (Viking, Mars Observer, Voyager, Galileo
Galileo Mission, etc.).
She was the first to recognize, using
satellite images, that a ring of
cenotes or sinkholes, is the only surface impression of the buried
Chicxulub crater. This research contributed significantly to the understanding of this
impact crater. She later discover the most proximal ejecta blanket formation of the Chicxulub crater located in the border between Mexico and Belize. Ocampo has subsequently led at least seven research expeditions to the Chicxulub site. and to Belize K/Pg ejecta sites, which she discovered and were the subject of her MSc and PhD. She continues to search for new impact craters, and with her team, in 2017, reported on a possible crater near
Cali, Colombia. (
Full article...)
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Image 2
Police photograph of Fuchs (
c. 1940)
(29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German
theoretical physicist,
atomic spy, and communist who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian
Manhattan Project to the
Soviet Union during and shortly after
World War II. While at the
Los Alamos Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first
nuclear weapons and, later, early models of the
hydrogen bomb. After his conviction in 1950, he served nine years in prison in the United Kingdom, then migrated to
East Germany where he resumed his career as a physicist and scientific leader.
The son of a
Lutheran pastor, Fuchs attended the
University of Leipzig, where his father was a professor of
theology, and became involved in student politics, joining the student branch of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the
Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, an SPD-allied
paramilitary organisation. He was expelled from the SPD in 1932, and joined the
Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He went into hiding after the 1933
Reichstag fire and the subsequent persecution of communists in Nazi Germany, and fled to the United Kingdom, where he received his
PhD from the
University of Bristol under the supervision of
Nevill Francis Mott, and his
DSc from the
University of Edinburgh, where he worked as an assistant to
Max Born. (
Full article...)
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Image 3William George Penney, Baron Penney,
OM, KBE, FRS, FRSE (24 June 1909 – 3 March 1991) was an English mathematician and professor of
mathematical physics at the
Imperial College London and later the
rector of Imperial College London. He had a leading role in the development of
High Explosive Research, Britain's clandestine nuclear programme that started in 1942 during the
Second World War which produced the first British atomic bomb in 1952.
As the head of the
British delegation working on the
Manhattan Project at
Los Alamos Laboratory, Penney initially carried out
calculations to predict the
damage effects generated by the
blast wave of an
atomic bomb. Upon returning home, Penney directed the British nuclear weapons directorate, codenamed
Tube Alloys and directed scientific research at the
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment which resulted in the first
detonation of a British
nuclear bomb in
Operation Hurricane in 1952. After the test, Penney became chief advisor to the new
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). He was later chairman of the authority, which he used in international negotiations to control
nuclear testing with the
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (
Full article...)
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Image 5J. H. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company was one of the largest and best-known manufacturers of glass in the United States during the 19th century. Its products were distributed worldwide. The company is responsible for one of the greatest innovations in American glassmaking—an improved formula for
lime glass that enabled American glass manufacturers to produce high-quality glass at a lower cost. The firm also developed talented glassmakers that started glass factories in
Ohio and
Indiana.
The firm was first organized as
Barnes, Hobbs and Company in 1845 by James B. Barnes and John L. Hobbs. Both men held supervisory positions at the
New England Glass Company in
Massachusetts before starting their business venture. They came to a small community near the south side of
Wheeling, Virginia, to begin their new glassmaking partnership. The company's glass factory was known as the South Wheeling Glass Works. The firm was reorganized multiple times during the 50 years following 1845, but members of the Hobbs family were always part of the ownership. During its peak notoriety, the company was named
J. H. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company. This version of the firm was organized in 1863 as a co-partnership between John L. Hobbs, son John H. Hobbs, and Charles W. Brockunier. Its products were mostly
pressed and
blown tableware. (
Full article...)
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Image 6Bruno Benedetto Rossi (
ROSS-ee,
Italian: [ˈbruːno beneˈdetto ˈrossi]; 13 April 1905 – 21 November 1993) was an Italian-American
experimental physicist. He made major contributions to
particle physics and the study of
cosmic rays. A 1927 graduate of the
University of Bologna, he became interested in cosmic rays. To study them, he invented an improved electronic
coincidence circuit, and travelled to
Eritrea to conduct experiments that showed that cosmic ray intensity from the West was significantly larger than that from the East.
Forced to emigrate in October 1938 due to the
Italian racial laws, Rossi moved to Denmark, where he worked with
Niels Bohr. He then moved to Britain, where he worked with
Patrick Blackett at the
University of Manchester. Finally, he went to the United States, where he worked with
Enrico Fermi at the
University of Chicago, and later at
Cornell University. Rossi stayed in the United States and became an American citizen. (
Full article...)
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Image 7A
steam devil is a small, weak
whirlwind over water (or sometimes wet land) that has drawn fog into the
vortex, thus rendering it visible. They form over large lakes and oceans during cold air outbreaks while the water is still relatively warm, and can be an important mechanism in vertically transporting moisture. They are a component of
sea smoke.
Smaller steam devils and
steam whirls can form over
geyser basins even in warm weather because of the very high water temperatures. Although observations of steam devils are generally quite rare, hot springs in
Yellowstone Park produce them on a daily basis. (
Full article...)
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Image 9John Michael Klineberg (October 16, 1938 – December 31, 2022) was an American
aerospace engineer and
NASA official who directed two of the agency's field centers. He began his NASA career as a research engineer at the
Ames Research Center in 1970 before moving to
NASA Headquarters, where he helped develop the Aircraft Energy Efficiency Program, a federal effort to reduce aviation fuel consumption after the
1973 oil crisis.
He became deputy director of NASA's
Lewis Research Center in 1979 and served as its sixth director from 1987 to 1990. Under Klineberg, the center expanded its space portfolio, reactivated test facilities at
Plum Brook Station, and helped establish the Ohio Aerospace Institute. In 1990, he was appointed the seventh director of
Goddard Space Flight Center, arriving just as the newly launched
Hubble Space Telescope was found to have a flawed primary mirror. He oversaw the recovery effort that led to the telescope's repair during the 1993
STS-61 servicing mission, which was awarded the
Collier Trophy, and later managed the
Cosmic Background Explorer. Klineberg retired from NASA in 1995 and received the
NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the agency's highest honor. (
Full article...)
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Image 10Duncan & Miller Glass Company was a well-known glass manufacturing company in
Washington, Pennsylvania. Items that were produced by the company are known as "Duncan glass" or "Duncan Miller glass." The company was founded in 1865 by George Duncan with his two sons and son-in-law in the
South Side neighborhood of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1890, the company joined other glass companies to form the
United States Glass Company, a powerful
glass trust. In 1892, the factory was destroyed in a fire, and the company was relieved of its trust relationship with the US Glass Company. After the fire, the second generation of the Duncan family moved operations to Washington, Pennsylvania. In 1900, John Ernest Miller, the company's long-time designer, became a full shareholder along with members of the Duncan family. By 1955, economic pressures from machine-produced glass forced the company to sell off its assets to the US Glass Company, who continued to produce Duncan-style glass until 1980. (
Full article...)
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Image 11Noctilucent clouds (NLCs), or
night shining clouds, are tenuous
cloud-like phenomena in the upper
atmosphere. When viewed from space, they are called
polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), detectable as a diffuse scattering layer of water ice crystals near the summer polar
mesopause. They consist of
ice crystals and from the ground are only visible during
astronomical twilight.
Noctilucent roughly means "night shining" in
Latin. They are most often observed during the
summer months from
latitudes between ±50° and ±70°. Too faint to be seen in
daylight, they are visible only when the observer and the lower layers of the atmosphere are in
Earth's shadow while these very high clouds are still in
sunlight. Recent studies suggest that increased
atmospheric methane emissions produce additional water vapour through chemical reactions once the methane molecules reach the mesosphere – creating, or reinforcing existing, noctilucent clouds. (
Full article...)
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Image 12Norris Edwin Bradbury (May 30, 1909 – August 20, 1997) was an American
physicist who served as director of the
Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25 years from 1945 to 1970. He succeeded
Robert Oppenheimer, who personally chose Bradbury for the position of director after working closely with him on the
Manhattan Project during
World War II. Bradbury was in charge of the final assembly of "
the Gadget", detonated in July 1945 for the
Trinity test.
Bradbury took charge at Los Alamos at a difficult time. Staff were leaving in droves, living conditions were poor and there was a possibility that the laboratory would close. He managed to persuade enough staff to stay and got the University of California to renew the contract to manage the laboratory. He pushed continued development of nuclear weapons, transforming them from laboratory devices to production models. Numerous improvements made them safer, more reliable and easier to store and handle, and made more efficient use of scarce fissionable materiel. (
Full article...)
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Image 13A
gravity bong, also known as a GB, bucket bong, grav, geeb, gibby, yoin, or ghetto bong, is a method of consuming smokable substances such as
cannabis. The term describes both a
bucket bong and a
waterfall bong, since both use air pressure and water to draw smoke. A
lung uses similar equipment but instead of water draws the smoke by removing a compacted plastic bag or similar from the chamber.
The bucket bong is made out of two containers, with the larger, open-top container filled with water. The smaller has an attached
bowl and open bottom, and the smaller is placed into the larger. Once the bowl is lit, the operator must move the small container up, causing a pressure difference. Smoke slowly fills the small jar until the user removes the bowl and inhales the contents. A waterfall bong is made up of only one container. The container must have a bowl and a small hole near the base so the water can drain easily. As the water flows out of the container, air is forced through the bowl and causes the substance to burn and accumulate smoke in the bong. However, none of them in their usual construction does actually fit the definition of a
bong, as the smoke is not made to bubble through the water in order to cool and filter it. (
Full article...)
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The following are images from various physics-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Image 3Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), early proponent of the modern scientific worldview and method (from
History of physics)
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Image 5Hydrogen
emission spectrum is discrete (here in log scale). The lines can only be explained with quantum mechanics. (from
History of physics)
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Image 6Marie Skłodowska-Curie(1867–1934) received Nobel prizes in physics (1903) and chemistry (1911). (from
History of physics)
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Image 7Maxwell's demon, thought experiment by
James Clerk Maxwell to describe the
kinetic theory of gases and describe how a microscopic creature could lead to violations of the
second law of thermodynamics. (from
History of physics)
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Image 8The
quantum Hall effect: Components of the Hall resistivity as a function of the external magnetic field (from
Condensed matter physics)
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Image 9One possible signature of a Higgs boson from a simulated
proton–proton collision. It decays almost immediately into two jets of
hadrons and two electrons, visible as lines. (from
History of physics)
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Image 10Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) (from
History of physics)
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Image 13Crookes tube used to study
cathode rays. It led to the discovery of the
electron by
J. J. Thomson. (from
History of physics)
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Image 14Classical physics is usually concerned with everyday conditions: speeds are much lower than the
speed of light, sizes are much greater than that of atoms, yet very small in astronomical terms. Modern physics, however, is concerned with high velocities, small distances, and very large energies. (from
Modern physics)
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Image 15Image of X-ray diffraction pattern from a
protein crystal (from
Condensed matter physics)
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Image 16Johannes Kepler's first
law of planetary motion states that planets move in elliptical orbits about the Sun. (from
History of physics)
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Image 17The first
Bose–Einstein condensate observed in a gas of ultracold
rubidium atoms. The blue and white areas represent higher density. (from
Condensed matter physics)
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Image 18James Prescott Joule's apparatus for measuring the
mechanical equivalent of heat which the "
work" of the falling weight is converted into the "
heat" of agitation in the water. (from
History of physics)
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Image 20The
Voltaic pile, the first battery was invented by
Alessandro Volta in 1800 (from
History of physics)
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Image 21The Hindu-Arabic numeral system. The inscriptions on the
edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BCE) display this number system being used by the Imperial
Mauryas. (from
History of physics)
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Image 22A
Feynman diagram representing (left to right) the production of a photon (blue
sine wave) from the
annihilation of an electron and its complementary
antiparticle, the
positron. The photon becomes a
quark–
antiquark pair and a
gluon (green spiral) is released. (from
History of physics)
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Image 25Albert Einstein (1879–1955), ca. 1905 (from
History of physics)
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Image 26Magdeburg hemispheres, an experiment by
Otto von Guericke where two metal hemispheres are held together by vacuum and cannot be separated even if large forces are applied. (from
History of physics)
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Image 27The ancient Greek mathematician
Archimedes, developer of ideas regarding
fluid mechanics and
buoyancy. (from
History of physics)
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Image 28Replica of
William Herschel's telescope used to discover
Uranus (from
History of physics)
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Image 29Richard Feynman's Los Alamos ID badge (from
History of physics)
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Image 30Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) (from
History of physics)
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Image 32Einstein proposed that
gravitation results from
masses (or their equivalent energies)
curving ("bending") the
spacetime in which they exist, altering the paths they follow within it. (from
History of physics)
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Image 33Newton's cannonball, a though experiment by Newton relating the motion of a projectile and orbiting of planets. (from
History of physics)
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Image 34Classical physics (
Rayleigh–Jeans law, black line) failed to explain
black-body radiation – the so-called
ultraviolet catastrophe. The quantum description (
Planck's law, colored lines) is said to be
modern physics. (from
Modern physics)
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Image 35Chien-Shiung Wu worked on parity violation in 1956 and announced her results in January 1957. (from
History of physics)
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Image 36Star maps by the 11th century Chinese
polymath Su Song are the oldest known
woodblock-printed star maps to have survived to the present day. This example, dated 1092, employs the cylindrical
equirectangular projection. (from
History of physics)
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Image 37A
magnet levitating above a
high-temperature superconductor. Today some physicists are working to understand high-temperature superconductivity using the AdS/CFT correspondence. (from
Condensed matter physics)
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Image 38Computer simulation of
nanogears made of
fullerene molecules. It is hoped that advances in nanoscience will lead to machines working on the molecular scale. (from
Condensed matter physics)
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Image 40Composite montage comparing
Jupiter (
left) and its four
Galilean moons (
from top:
Io,
Europa,
Ganymede,
Callisto) (from
History of physics)
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