Working on CavMag has reminded us how deeply the Cavendish story is intertwined with both history and innovation. Across its generations, the Department has been renewed time and again by new instruments, new buildings, and above all, new minds. Editing this magazine has been our way of joining that tradition, offering our perspective as the next generation of physicists.

It is therefore especially meaningful that this issue coincides with another moment of renewal for the Department: the arrival of Nicola Marzari, who only recently took up the Cavendish Professorship of Physics. His appointment continues a lineage that stretches back to James Clerk Maxwell, through Lord Rayleigh, J. J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, and Nevill Mott, to Richard Friend, and now opens a new chapter in the Laboratory’s story. In our interview, Professor Marzari reflects on this legacy and looks ahead to the possibilities of computational and theoretical physics, from understanding complex materials to harnessing artificial intelligence as a tool for discovery. He also speaks movingly about the human side of science: mentorship, creativity, and responsibility in a world where physics touches every aspect of life.

This issue, like the Cavendish itself, brings together many ways of seeing. From reflections on our scientific past to cutting-edge experiments, and from nanoscale droplets to cosmic radio waves, each article reveals how curiosity connects us across scales and generations. The outreach feature highlights recent work with pre-university students, which has grown since some of us attended these events as school students! Finally, the results of the latest photography competition remind us that wonder can be captured as much through a lens as through a formula.

Editing this edition has been both a privilege and an education. We are grateful to Harry Cliff, Vanessa Bismuth and the Cavendish Communications team for their guidance, and to the researchers and alumni whose works fill these pages.

As always, we are delighted to hear from you, so please do contact us using the details opposite with your comments or suggestions. We hope you enjoy this special edition of CavMag as much as we enjoyed creating it.

The Student Editors - Daniel Robins, Bofeng Xue, Minglei Zhang

• Daniel is a second-year PhD student in the Astrophysics (radio cosmology) group. He works on constructing radio maps using the REACH telescope.
• Bofeng is a second-year PhD student in the Optoelectronics group. His research interests focus on developing ultrafast spectroscopy and microscopy to unravel charge carrier dynamics and transport mechanisms in novel semiconductor materials.
• Minglei is a third-year PhD student in the Molecular Engineering group. Her research is to design materials with desirable mechanical properties using data-driven methods.