"Britney Spears" and "semiconductor physics" are four words we'll bet you never thought you'd read in the same sentence. Okay, then try these words found adjacent to a head shot of Spears seductively gazing up from a pillow: "Semiconductors have a resistivity between 10^-4 < r < 10⁸ W • m, although these are rough limits."

Incongruous? More like an elegant equation to Carl Hepburn. A postgraduate student in physics at the University of Essex in the UK, Hepburn put two and two together and realized that if his URL used the words "Britney Spears" he would get as many hits as the teenybopper singing sensation herself. "I knew most people who were looking for information on Britney would not appreciate a site solely dedicated to semiconductor physics. So I added picture galleries," he told the Telegraph newspaper. "It was not difficult to imagine the two coming together in a Pythonesque manner." Thus was born Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics at http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm. Writes Hepburn on his home page: "She will guide you in the fundamentals of the vital laser components that have made it possible to hear her super music in a digital format."

A spokesman for Spears' record label good-naturedly calls the site "very funny and very cheeky." That may be the only time that description is ever applied to device physics. Then again, how often will you find a Web site that juxtaposes Spears' navel alongside references to p-n junctions and substrate temperatures?