Launched in 2013, Frontiers in Physics consists of 18 specialties covering all areas of research in physics. With over 500 published manuscripts, the journal is now indexed in SCIE with the first impact factor coming in 2019. Frontiers in Physics aims to become the largest and most cited open access multidisciplinary physics journal. This eBook collects what the Specialty Chief Editors of the journal believed were the most interesting manuscripts published over the past two years. It is a nice collection, which will offer the reader the chance to have a quick overview of the specialties of the journal and offer a glimpse into the state of the art of physics. We must confess that it has been quite challenging to select only one article per specialty section given the many important manuscripts published by the journal in 2017 and 2018. We invite our reader to have a look at the journal homepage and browse what we have published so far. It includes articles on topics very different from each other, written by both early career scientists and well-known researchers, ranging from the indisputable advance of the field to the more bold. We hope you enjoy reading our first edition of the Frontiers in Physics Editor's Choice eBook! Professor Alex Hansen (Field Chief Editor) and Dr Claudio Bogazzi (Journal Manager)

The Olympia conference Frontiers of Fundamental Physics was a gathering of about hundred scientists who carryon their research in conceptually important areas of physical science (they do "fundamental physics"). Most of them were physicists, but also historians and philosophers of science were well represented. An important fraction of the participants could be considered "heretical" because they disagreed with the validity of one or several fundamental assumptions of modern physics. Common to all participants was an excellent scientific level coupled with a remarkable intellectual honesty: we are proud to present to the readers this certainly unique book. Alternative ways of considering fundamental matters should of course be vitally important for the progress of science, unless one wanted to admit that physics at the end of the XXth century has already obtained the final truth, a very unlikely possibility even if one accepted the doubtful idea of the existence of a "final" truth. The merits of the Olympia conference should therefore not be judged a priori in a positive or in a negative way depending on one's refusal or acceptance, respectively, but considered after reading the actual of basic principles of contemporary science, new proposals and evidences there presented. They seem very important to us.

In a knowledge-based society, research into fundamental physics plays a vital role not only in the enhancement of human knowledge but also in the development of new technology that affects everyday life.The international symposium series Frontiers of Fundamental Physics (FFP) regularly brings together eminent scholars and researchers working in various areas in physics to exchange expertise, ideas, results, and new research perspectives. The twelfth such symposium, FFP12, took place at the University of Udine, Italy, and covered diverse fields of research: astrophysics, high energy physics and particle physics, theoretical physics, gravitation and cosmology, condensed matter physics, statistical physics, computational physics, and mathematical physics. Importantly, it also devoted a great deal of attention to physics education research, teacher training in modern physics, and popularization of physics. The high scientific level of FFP12 was guaranteed by the careful selection made by scientific coordinators from among 250 submissions from 28 countries across the world. During the three days of the conference, nine general talks were delivered in plenary sessions, 29 invited talks were given in specific topic areas, and 59 oral presentations were made. This book presents a selection of the best contributions at FFP12 with the aim of acquainting readers with the most important recent advances in fundamental physics and in physics education and teacher development.

This symposium was organized at the B.M. Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, India, and provided a platform for frontier physicists to exchange ideas and review the latest work and developments on a variety of interrelated topics. A feature of the symposium, as well as the proceedings, is the B.M. Birla Memorial Lecture by Nobel Laureate Professor Gerard 't Hooft. There were participants from the USA, several European countries, Russia and CIS countries, South Africa, Japan, India and elsewhere, of whom some forty scientists presented papers. Spanning a wide range of contemporary issues in fundamental physics from string theory to cosmology, the proceedings present many of these talks and contributions.

In the world of physics, very little in the universe is what it first appears to be. And science fiction has imagined some pretty wild ideas about how the universe could work – from hidden extra dimensions in Interstellar to life as a mental projection in The Matrix. But these imaginings seem downright tame compared with the mind-bending science now coming out of physics and astronomy, and in this eBook, Physics: New Frontiers, we look at the strange and fascinating discoveries shaping (and reshaping) the field today. In the world of astrophysics, the weirdness begins at the moment of creation. In “The Black Hole at the Beginning of Time,” the authors discuss theories of what might have come before the big bang. Could our 3-D universe have sprung from the formation of a black hole in a 4-D cosmos? The math says: maybe. Later, in “The Giant Bubbles of the Milky Way,” the authors describe massive structures dubbed “Fermi bubbles” at its center – structures that no one noticed until recently. Technological innovations make much of this new science possible, as we see again in “Neutrinos at the Ends of the Earth,” where 5,000-odd sensors frozen deep within a cubic kilometer of ice in Antarctica aim to catch neutrinos in order to study distant cosmic phenomena. Scientists are also dissecting molecules with the most powerful x-ray laser in the world, as explored in “The Ultimate X-ray Machine.” Even our most fundamental notions of what reality is are up for debate, as examined in “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” and the aptly named “What Is Real?” in which the authors question whether particles are indeed material things at all. While all of this abstraction might seem like a fun exercise in mental gymnastics, living things must also abide by the laws of physics, which, according to “The Limits of Intelligence,” may prevent our brains from evolving further. Then again, as we’ve learned, things could be different than they appear...

The revolution in twentieth century physics has changed the way we think about space, time and matter and our own place in the universe. It has offered answers to many of the big questions of existence, such as the ultimate nature of things and the how the universe came into being. It has undermined our belief in a Newtonian mechanistic universe and a deterministic future, posing questions about parallel universes, time-travel and the origin and end of everything. At the same time we have witnessed amazing attempts at unification so that physicists are able to contemplate the discovery of a single 'theory of everything' from which we could derive the masses and types of all particles and their interactions. This book tells the story of these discoveries and the people who made them, largely through the work of Nobel Prize winning physicists.

The aim of this book is to elucidate a number of basic topics in physics of dense plasmas that interface with condensed matter physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics. The different plasmas examined here include astrophysical dense plasmas - like those found in the interiors, surfaces, and outer envelopes of such astronomical objects as neutron stars, white dwarfs, the Sun, brown dwarfs, and giant planets. Condensed plasmas in laboratory settings cover metals and alloys (solid, amorphous, liquid, and compressed), semiconductors (electrons, holes, and their droplets), and various realizations of dense plasmas (shock-compressed, diamond-anvil cell, metal vaporization, pinch discharges, and more.)Statistical Plasma Physics: Volume II, Condensed Plasmas is intended as a graduate-level textbook on the subjects of condensed plasma physics, material sciences, and condensed-matter astrophysics. It will also be useful to researchers in the fields of plasma physics, condensed-matter physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.