New insights in accelerator-driven systems
As part of EUCARD2 activities, and co-sponsored by EPS Technology and Innovation Group (TIG), a workshop on the status of new developments in Accelerator-Driven Systems or ADS was held at CERN on February 7-9.
EPS Edison Volta Prize call
Nominations are now open for the new Edison Volta Prize of the European Physical Society [EPS]. The award – intended to promote excellence in research – will be given in recognition of outstanding achievements in physics.
The EPS Edison Volta Prize will be given biannually to individuals or groups of up to three people. The award consists of a diploma, a medal, and 10,000 euros in prize money.
The award has been established by the Centro di Cultura Scientifica “Alessandro Volta”, Edison S.p.A…
Neutrino research uncovers Mediterranean vortices
Chains of marine vortices have been discovered for the first time in the eastern Mediterranean by an Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare [INFN] neutrino research project. This unexpected observation, which is relevant to studies of climate change in the Mediterranean Sea, is described in a paper published in the online journal Nature Communications last month.
The vortices were uncovered by the Neutrino Mediterranean Observatory [NEMO] project…
EPS Workshop on Technology and Innovation
The first International Workshop on Technology and Innovation of the European Physical Society is being held at the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture, in Sicily, on the 21-25 October this year. The topic under discussion will be “Nuclear and subnuclear physics technologies and innovations leading to medical and industrial applications”.
For more information, please contact Horst Wenninger, or visit the Ettore Majorana Foundation website.
Assessment assessed
Physicists like numbers. We measure them, calculate them and use them to test experiment against theory.
Yet we also respect numbers. We appreciate their limitations and we take extreme care to educate students that numbers are open to misinterpretation. From the first years of university-level physics teaching we stress how measurements are affected by systematic and random errors and uncertainties, and we explain and distinguish the difference between accuracy (“truth”) and precision (“reproducibility”)…
EPS CMD Europhysics Prize
The 2012 European Physical Society [EPS] Condensed Matter Division Europhysics Prize will be awarded to Steven Bramwell, Claudio Casternovo, Santiago Grigera, Roderich Moessner, Shivaji Sondhi and Alan Tennant for the prediction and experimental observation of magnetic monopoles in spin ice. The prize will be presented at the forthcoming EPS CMD General Conference in Edinburgh.
Among the most exotic and unexpected developments in recent decades has been the discovery…
Hardaker appointed new Institute of Physics CEO
Paul Hardaker has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of the Institute of Physics, it was announced at the end of May. Hardaker will take up the post on 3 September this year.
Hardaker, a visiting professor at the University of Reading’s School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, is the also the CEO of the Royal Meteorological Society. A Met Office employee for 14 years, he served as both Development Programme director and Chief Advisor to Government for the British national weather service…
CLEO®/Europe-IQEC
The European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and the 12th European Quantum Electronics Conference [CLEO®/Europe-IQEC] are being held at the International Congress Centre in Munich, Germany, on 12-16 May 2013.
CLEO®/Europe will emphasise applied physics, optical engineering and the applications of photonics and laser technology. IQEC emphasises basic research in laser physics, nonlinear optics and quantum optics.
The conference is being managed by the European Physical Society Conference Department…
American Physical Society publishes new strategic plan
The American Physical Society [APS] has published its Strategic Plan for 2013-2017. The plan – which has been in development for the past year – was formulated by the APS Executive Board, its operating officers and staff.
The plan aims to review APS activities, and highlight methods to improve how the society serves its members, the wider physics community and society in general.
Feedback on the plan – specifically concerning implementation ideas – is being encouraged…
Primordial QCD Matter in the LHC Era
The “Primordial QCD Matter in the LHC Era: implications of QCD results in the early universe” conference is being held in Cairo, Egypt on 10-14 February 2013.
The event – the second in this series – aims to bring together cosmologists and particle physicists to discussion QCD matter in the light of recent discoveries from the Large Hadron Collider [LHC].
Topics under discussion at the event will include: astrophysical observations and ultra-high energy cosmic rays…
SuperB accelerator to gain Free Electron Laser
The SuperB accelerator will soon expand its scientific offerings through a multidisciplinary infrastructure: the Free Electron Laser [FEL]. This will add to the accelerator apparatus – based at Cabibbolab, Italy – which will be completed in the next five years.
The FEL contains a long magnetic “ondulator”, comprising a large number of magnets of alternating polarities, which force electrons into a slalom-type path. This nano-beam of light has the characteristics of typical laser light…
SNOLAB celebrates opening
The Canadian neutrino observatory SNOLAB celebrated its grand opening – and the completion of its construction – on 17 May this year. SNOLAB – shielded, underground, by two kilometres of rock – is now the world’s deepest and cleanest neutrino laboratory, enabling experiments to be conducted with the least interference from environmental and solar radioactivity.
“As SNOLAB marks its formal opening, our science workshop has given us the chance to reflect…
