Editorial — Outreach for All

One of the most rewarding experiences in preparing for the International Year of Light next year has been to see at firsthand just how many physicists are committed to science outreach. It has been extremely encouraging to learn about the many outreach initiatives throughout Europe. With global concern about public misunderstanding of science and technology, outreach is a hot topic, and ambitious programmes such as the Horizon 2020 “Science with and for Society” aim precisely at developing innovative ways of connecting science with the public.
“Outreach” is of course a very broad term, encompassing many different types of activity. Many research…

International Year of Light News

Philatelic IYL 2015 in Liechtenstein
The yellow IYL 2015-stamp with a facial value of 0.55 CHF and the motto “Preparing the International Year of Light-Technologies, Physical section, Scientific Society of Liechtenstein” is the first IYL 2015 commemorative stamp…
Tell us about your events for the global IYL2015 calendar!
The global IYL2015 website will be live in a month or so, but meanwhile the landing page at www.light2015.org has appeared. The site will be progressively filled with content covering all aspects of the planned activities and events…

International Year of Light News

IYL2015 mobilisation begins worldwide
The start of the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies [IYL2015] may still be nine months away, but there has been tremendous enthusiasm from scientists and non-scientists alike, and planning meetings…
The International Year of Light has begun for St. Petersburg
Meetings are currently taking place all over the world in order to brainstorm ideas and plan the activities for the International Year of Light 2015, and St. Petersburg is no exception. It could hardly be otherwise: this is…

Editorial International Year of Light 2015

It is an absolute pleasure to announce that the United Nations [UN] General Assembly formally proclaimed the year 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies [IYL2015] on 20 December 2013. You can read our official press release on the EPS website. This is the official green light that will allow the EPS and our many international partners to accelerate towards a fantastic year of activities throughout 2015.

The UN General Assembly declares only a very small number of International Years, and it does so to raise…

Editorial — Educating Upwards

I think that most of us would agree that physics research is poorly understood by politicians, and that we need to explain better what it is we do, and why. But while there may be consensus on the need for better communication, there is no universal agreement on how this should be achieved. And I have also heard frequently the same complaint that no matter how much effort we make, it seems to make no difference. There is little evidence that physics is actually appreciated at the political level.
I believe that the reason for this is simple. Namely, that we are not talking to the right people in the right way…

Editorial — Reliable Research: Getting Science Right

Science is in the news a lot these days. This is not surprising, since there is interest from many quarters: from the public fascinated by contemporary research, to policy makers who wish to decide how best to allocate public funding to achieve particular goals.

A recent cover story of The Economist caught my attention and that of many in the scientific community. With the title of “Unreliable Research: Trouble at the lab”, the article makes the provocative and worrying claim that whilst we…

Editorial – Forward Physics!

I had the tremendous pleasure of watching the Nobel Prize announcement on October 8 during the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft’s Live from Stockholm event held at the Magnus-Haus in Berlin. The assembly of high-level scientists and journalists made for a stimulating mix, and the delay prior to the announcement provided much opportunity for speculation and animated discussion!Of course, when it eventually was made, the announcement of the award to François Englert and Peter Higgs was met with tremendous pleasure. More details and background to this years’s Nobel Prize is given in another entry of this edition of e-EPS…

IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Quantum Electronics

The IUPAP Commission on Quantum Electronics C17 is presently soliciting nominations for its biennial Young Scientist Prizes in Quantum Electronics to be presented at the International Optics & Photonics Taiwan Conference in Zhongli, Taiwan, on 5-7 December 2013.

Two prizes will be awarded for outstanding contributions to quantum electronics and its applications made by young scientists with a maximum of 8 years of research experience, counted from the nomination deadline…

Editorial – Physics for Fun

For many who measure time according to a university calendar, summer is a time to unwind. My experience, however, is that it is rare to find physics departments empty over the summer break. Many of us use the vacation period without classes to catch up with research, and I imagine that a colleague of mine speaks for many when he says that summer provides him with the freedom to do the physics he wants to do, and this is all the break needed to prepare for the next academic year!
This reminds me a little of the Wobbling Plate story in “Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman”? When Richard Feynman…

Accelerators and Fibre Laser Symposium at CERN

The International Coherent Amplification Network [ICAN] held a two-day symposium on new fibre laser-based accelerator concepts at CERN from 27 to 28 June 2013. The symposium assembled a wide range of scientists ranging from particle physicists to telecommunications engineers to explore how a new architecture of high intensity lasers could contribute to the next generation of particle accelerators.
The idea behind the use of lasers for particle acceleration exploits the fact that ultrashort laser pulses can generate electric field intensities sufficient to drive plasma wakefield dynamics which can accelerate electrons to GeV energies…

Editorial – Community celebration of physics

Like all areas of modern science, physics today is more and more specialized. Workers in different subfields interact with each other rarely, and it is easy to forget that we form part of a community of scientists studying the one fundamental subject concerned with the nature of matter on all scales.

There is, however, one regular reminder of the importance of physics as a fundamental discipline of science. This…

€70 billion for Horizon 2020

After long negotiation between European Union leaders agreeing on the next seven year budget for the Union, the final figure of €70.2 billion has been agreed upon for the research programme Horizon 2020. Although this total is 23% more than allocated for the current framework programme FP7, the first instalment planned for 2014 of €8.8 billion is actually less than the allocated funding in 2013.

p>During the negotiations a number of demands by the European Parliament were met. These included…