 | January 1, 2010
By:David W. Ball
In the previous installment of this column, David Ball introduced the five types of symmetry elements that are important in physical science. Here, he discuss why it’s called "group" theory in the first place.
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 | December 1, 2009
By:David W. Ball
Group theory is the field of mathematics that includes, among other things, the treatment of symmetry. Well, it turns out that molecules have symmetry, so group theoretical principles can be applied to molecules. Because spectroscopy uses light to probe the properties of molecules, it might not be surprising that group theory has some application to spectroscopy. Here, we start a multipart discussion of symmetry and group theory.
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 | September 9, 2009
By:David W. Ball
Columnist David W. Ball discusses how a scarf featuring the visible emission spectrum of hydrogen inspired his latest column, on color.
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 | June 1, 2009
By:David W. Ball
Some forms of spectroscopy involve actions other than measuring a property of light. In the case of this form of spectroscopy, the energies of emitted electrons are measured.
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 | April 1, 2009
By:David W. Ball
In the previous installment of this column, David Ball introduced the concept of base units and discussed several of them. Here, he completes the discussion of the units themselves and presents some associated issues.
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 | January 1, 2009
By:David W. Ball
Columnist David ball discusses the history of the units system used by scientists and several of the base units themselves.
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 | December 1, 2008
By:David W. Ball
In the last installment of this column, I discussed prisms. In this installment, we will consider their curved cousins.
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 | September 1, 2008
By:David W. Ball
A prism is an optical component that serves one of two major functions: it disperses light, or it modifies the direction (and sometimes polarization) of light. In some cases, a prism has more than one function, and they are discussed here.
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 | June 1, 2008
By:David W. Ball
In Parts I-III of this series, columnist David W. Ball recounted the failings of classical mechanics, the quantum hypothesis, and the rise of a new theory called quantum mechanics. In this installment, he discusses the ideal systems whose wavefunctions can be determined exactly from the Schr?dinger equation.
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