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physicsworld.com Asia China signs off big science infrastructure plan China’s state council has approved a major infrastructure construction programme for science and technology over the coming two decades. Running from 2012 to 2030, the programme will aim to boost innovation in China, support major scientific breakthroughs and speed up construction of major scientific facilities. Seven areas that focus on China’s strategic aims are earmarked, including energy and materials research, Earth systems and environments, as well as particle and nuclear physics. The programme will see China building some 16 major projects, which include establishing a seafloor observatory network and carrying out a precise survey of China’s resources by measuring the strength of gravity at varying locations around the country, the latter being led by Huazhong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The state council maintains that, rather than just being run by leading universities and institutions, all the projects should involve better collaboration and the results be openly shared. Physicists in China have broadly welcomed the plan. “It focuses on The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, UK, is to receive £25m towards the construction of an Advanced Metrology Laboratory (AML) that will contain up to 20 labs and be complete by 2017. The AML will be housed in a new building on the NPL site, with research focusing on areas such as graphene, nano-analysis and time and frequency measurements. “The key feature of the new laboratory is the stable, high-specification environment it will provide, [such as] low magnetic field and vibration, and very stable temperature and humidity control,” says Bill Nimmo, a senior research scientist at NPL. It is also hoped that the AML will foster stronger links between NPL and academia. “This arrangement will attract industry partners and funding from multiple sources,” adds Nimmo. The plan gives a high level of confidence in China’s ability to innovate cutting-edge research for the seven fields so this is an important plan for China,” says astrophysicist Tipei Li from Tsinghua University and the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing. “While many other countries’ research budgets are decreasing, China’s budget is increasing.” Mi Xu, a senior adviser for the fast-reactor programme based at the China Institute of Atomic Energy in Beijing, agrees with the plan’s aims. “It has given me a high level of confidence in China’s ability to independently innovate,” he told Physics World, pointing to how the country has already led the way in building a fast-neutron reactor – one that can “breed” its own fuel – located in the Fangshan District on the outskirts of Beijing (see September 2011 p9). Meanwhile, the state council meeting in January also amended four regulations regarding the enforcement of copyright law and the protection of computer software. The changes were made in an attempt to intensify a crackdown on intellectual copyright infringement and combat the manufacture and sale of counterfeit products. Jiao Li Beijing UK NPL scoops £25m for advanced metrology centre Bigger and better The National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, UK, will build an Advanced Metrology Laboratory to develop improved time and frequency standards. NPL Cash for the AML is part of a UK government initiative to target investment in eight so-called “great science areas” – for which £460m has been allocated from a total £600m fund, originally announced last year. Other areas include £189m for big data and energy-efficient computing, £45m for new facilities and equipment for advanced materials research, as well as £50m for upgrades to research equipment and laboratories. Kulvinder Singh Chadha Sidebands News & Analysis NSF director quits Materials scientist Subra Suresh has announced his resignation as director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF). In a letter to staff he said he would be leaving at the end of this month to become president of Carnegie Mellon University. Suresh, a former dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was appointed NSF director in October 2010 for a six-year period. In the letter he said it has been an “extraordinary honour” to lead the NSF, which has a budget of around $7bn. “Despite the economic crisis and the lingering uncertainties that have ensued, NSF funding has sustained growth,” he wrote. NSF deputy director Cora Marrett is expected to be named acting director until Suresh’s replacement is found. Starting bell sounds for CHIME Construction has begun on what will be Canada’s largest radio telescope. The C$11m Canadian Hydrogen Intensity- Mapping Experiment (CHIME) in Penticton, British Columbia, is the first research telescope to be built in the country in more than 30 years. CHIME boasts a 100 × 100 m collecting area, which will be filled with 2560 low-noise receivers built with components adapted from the mobile-phone industry. Signals collected by the CHIME telescope will be digitally <strong>sample</strong>d nearly one billion times per second, then processed to produce an image of the sky. Astronomers will use the telescope to map a quarter of the observable universe to help better understand the nature of dark energy. Liangying Xu: 1920–2013 The Chinese physicist Liangying Xu, who was a fierce advocate of democracy in China, died on 28 January at the age of 92. Xu was born in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang on 3 May 1920 and studied physics at Zhejiang University. He later became a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), serving as a censor for papers that were going to be sent abroad for publication. In 1957 Xu took part in the “Hundred Flowers” campaign to speak out over the Communist Party’s failings, for which he was sent to his home village where he worked on a farm and also began translating Einstein’s works. Following the death of Communist party chairman Mao Zedong in 1976, banished scientists returned from the countryside and Liangying regained his job at the CAS and subsequently published a three-volume collection of Einstein’s works. Physics World March 2013 13
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