However, it has also brought challenges. At the start of the year, the Science and Technology Facilities Council announced that it expects to make deep cuts to particle, nuclear and astrophysics research in the UK, citing fi nancial pressures and changing government priorities. These measures will devastate many of the areas in which the Cavendish is world leading, from probing the fundamental building blocks of nature at the Large Hadron Collider and neutrino experiments, to exploring the cosmos through radio astronomy and the James Webb Space Telescope. Physicists and astronomers across Cambridge have been grappling with the potential impact of these cuts while making the case, both in public and behind the scenes, for continued investment in fundamental physics, from which much of the talent and technology pipeline ultimately fl ows. Matt Kenzie explores the unfolding crisis and what can be done to resolve it in an opinion piece on page 5.

Meanwhile, the Cavendish continues to produce world-leading research. Christoph Eigen and Zoran Hadzibabic report on their discovery of a speed limit for the spread of quantum coherence in Bose Einstein condensates, with profound implications for our understanding of quantum matter and perhaps even cosmology. Magnus Handley gives an account of how new results from the MicroBooNE experiment have all but ruled out sterile neutrinos as an explanation for a long-standing anomaly, and Jan Scholtz, Francesco D’Eugenio and Roberto Maiolino tell the story of the supermassive black hole that snuffed out star formation in an ancient galaxy.

I would like to thank our Student Editors, Daniel Robins, Bofeng Xue and Minglei Zhang, who stepped in to produce issue 34 of CavMag while I was away on parental leave in late 2025. It was a pleasure working with such an enthusiastic and able team of young physicists, whose hard work resulted in an excellent edition of the magazine.

Finally, it was with great sadness that we learned that Peter Littlewood, internationally renowned condensed matter physicist and former Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, passed away on 15 June 2026. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family, friends, former students and colleagues. He will be greatly missed. An obituary of Peter will appear in the next edition of CavMag.