So pure physics at Reading University is no more. Not for the press reasons I suspect, but because it failed to attract the right calibre personnel. Ucas and hr will rehearse the reasons. But in fact the university, run by people of good sense, will know that reading physics is a non starter. There is no pure physics community in the M4 silicon valley. The closest are the parallel universe folk at Oxford. And too many misfit post-doc nuclear physicists have troubled the UK computer industry for research funds to fill. But there is a real need for practical physics, the kind that doesn’t come from chasing Schrödinger and Dirac through the undergrad years. Reading is close to the top in lots of cyber technology, from robots to dynamic neural networks to nanotech. Workers in these fields need understanding of engineering systems, not theoretical flannel. Specially as many will move along the M4 to Canary Wharf. It would be good if the bankers understood the technical companies they flog.
The real reason for the shrinking of physics is the math required for it. Not the dry limit arguments coined to smother the infinity debate, or preserve the status and careers of earnest teachers, but the all-embracing enthusiasms of national debate, the kind that peeped out in the growth time of sudoku, and that may just be ready to emerge if the current UK government is allowed to take the schools where they want. The alternative is limiting physics to oxbridge, a few rich redbricks, and buckinghamshire.
Perhaps it is time we analysed Newton’s greatness, seeking the magic under the boiler. But that a story for another time.


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