Today’s Physics News: Monday 18 January

Diarist’s account of Newton’s falling apple
The Royal Society has published William Stukeley’s Eighteenth Century memoirs of Isaac Newton’s life. The memoirs include a first-hand account of Newton’s gravity-explaining discovery.

Guardian
Daily Telegraph

New Scientist

Cameron’s teachers
Conservative proposals for elite teachers have come in for a lot of comment today.  To ensure that teaching becomes a “noble profession” they will not allow graduates with weak degrees to enter the profession.  They are happy for the policy to be labelled “brazenly elitist”.  Many of the new universities are concerned that the policy will leave their graduates out of the profession.

Telegraph

Guardian
BBC

Guardian on concern from new universities

Mandelson vs. laser development
A column in yesterday’s business section of The Observer extolled the virtues of backing fundamental science and asserts that the laser, that which makes DVD players and supermarket checkouts possible, would never have come about had Mandelson been in charge fifty years ago.  The laser, which enjoys a 50th birthday this year, could not have been developed in the stifling environment researchers must endure nowadays, he says.

Observer