Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
A laser focus
Rox Middleton, Liam Shaw and Miriam Gauntlett look at the history of lasers, from cat toys to modelling the explosion of stars
A rainbow lights up the Edinburgh skyline during the Scottish premiere of Global Rainbow a laser art installation by Yvette Mattern, part of Burns and Beyond, Edinburgh's flagship Burns festival, March 24, 2021
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
WHAT if you could capture light in a box? Lasers work on that very principle. Light is a wave and any colour is described by a particular wavelength. To trap light in a box, mirrors are used, with the dimensions specially chosen so that the light can reflect off the mirrors and “resonate” at its own wavelength.
Just like a musical instrument, these resonant waves reinforce each other. For a musical instrument, these reinforced waves come out as a sound wave making a note at a particular frequency, which is related to the wavelength.
In the case of a laser, light is trapped at a high intensity, again at a singular frequency related to the wavelength of the light. Some of the light is allowed to burst out of the container, seen as a laser beam.
More from this author
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
