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Physics, chemistry and mathematics in news

Physics, chemistry and mathematics as they reach the news: measurement and legal time, lasers and the physics of materials, chemistry, and famous problems in mathematics. Prelims has asked about the four fundamental forces and the Higgs boson.

Foundation note: The Large Hadron Collider and the Standard Model

Showing 1 of 4 articles, those that changed from 1 to 31 August 2026.Show all

India at FAIR

Prelims

The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an international particle accelerator being built in Germany, and India has been a founding member since 2010.

India splits the cost between its science and atomic energy departments, and the Bose Institute is its nodal body.
India is also supplying power converters, cables and detectors for two FAIR experiments.

What changed

7 Aug 2026BriefThe first of three Indian built beam catchers reached FAIR, designed by CSIR-CMERI (Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute) for the Super Fragment Separator, which produces radioactive beams. PIB, 7 Aug 2026: Indian-built beam catcher reaches FAIR, the international accelerator project (opens in a new tab)

Navier–Stokes equations: The equations of fluid motion, relating a fluid's velocity, pressure and viscosity.

Clay Mathematics Institute: An American foundation that in 2000 named seven unsolved Millennium Prize Problems, each carrying a prize of one million dollars.

Map projection: A way of drawing the Earth's curved surface flat, which always distorts area, shape, distance or direction.

Rhumb line: A course of constant compass bearing, crossing every meridian at the same angle, which sailors can steer without changing heading.

Traceability: Linking a clock or any measurement, through an unbroken chain of comparisons, to a national reference standard, here the one kept by CSIR-NPL.

Coordinated Universal Time: The international reference time (UTC), maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) from atomic clocks around the world.

Legal Metrology: The law of measurement: state rules that keep the instruments used in trade, health and safety accurate and verified, now extended to time.

Brout Englert Higgs mechanism: The process by which particles acquire mass by interacting with a field that fills space.