Editorial – The On-Demand Society
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The round table on “Influencing EU Science Policy” at the 2015 EPS Council in Bad Honnef
At the EPS Council meeting, which took place on 27-28 March in Bad Honnef (DE), a round table was organised on the topic of “Influencing European Commission Science Policy”. The round table attracted the attention of the participants and triggered interesting discussions. The scientific and industrial communities need to provide their viewpoints to science policy makers. EPS needs to define its own strategy and continue its collaborations with other learned societies and organisations representing different scientific fields to speak with a coherent voice in the EU.
The presentations at the round table were centred on these issues with specific inputs related to the experience of the organization (or company) represented by the speaker.
The 2015 EPS HEPP prizes are announced
The EPS High Energy Physics Division announces the winners of its 2015 prizes, which will be awarded at the Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics (EPS-HEP 2015), Vienna (Austria) 22−29 July 2015 (http://eps- hep2015.eu/):
The 2015 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize, for an outstanding contribution to High Energy Physics, is awarded to James D. Bjorken “for his prediction of scaling behaviour in the structure of the proton that led to a new understanding of the strong interaction”, and to…
International Year of Light news
Mulhouse, the city hosting the secretariat of the European Physical Society, has started it activities celebrating the International Year of Light [IYL 2015]. Educational visual arts workshops are being organised through the “Ateliers Pédagogiques d’Arts Plastiques” [APAP]. The team led by Cyrille Saint-Cricq has taken light as the connecting thread for their programme running all through the year.
The Virgo collaboration participates in the International Year of Light
No doubt that 2015 will be a bright year! It is of course the International Year of Light but it will also mark the first light for the gravitational wave detector Advanced Virgo based near Pisa in Italy. Advanced Virgo aims to detect the most violent events in the universe by measuring on Earth extremely small ripples in the fabric of space time itself. The detector is a giant Michelson interferometer made of two perpendicular 3-km long arms spreading along the Tuscan countryside.
Integration of the gender dimension in H2020 work-programmes
Horizon 2020 considers gender as a cross-cutting issue and stipulates that “the gender dimension shall be adequately integrated in research and innovation content, i.e. in programmes and projects and followed through at all stages of the research cycle”. Integrating the gender dimension in research and innovation content is one of the three objectives on gender equality in Horizon 2020. It means integrating sex and gender analysis into research. This ranges from securing inclusion of women and men as subjects in research to considering the needs of women and men as end-users of technological innovations.
This is the core of the White paper approved by the Advisory Group on Gender – one of the fourth cross-cutting advisory groups composed of members of the 15 groups of independent experts who advise on priorities for Horizon2020 …
Ancient books destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius ‘read’ for the very first time
Writing that has lain undiscovered for centuries inside a scroll that was charred in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD has been uncovered for the first time. The text, which was written inside a so called ‘papyrus roll’ that was found in the only surviving ancient library, discovered in Herculaneum 260 years ago, has been examined using X-rays at the European Synchrotron, the ESRF. The result, by a team from the Italian CNR, the ESRF, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität, and the CNRS, was published in Nature Communications (20 January 2015). It offers new possibilities for deciphering hundreds of so far untouched texts, without the damage that can be caused by trying to open them.
A Neutron Optical Approach to Explore the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics
theory describes the behavior of a system at atomic and smaller scales. At the beginning of the 20th century, the theory was developed and became one of the most successful theories in physics; for a wide range of the field, the validity of the theory has been verified with high accuracy by experiments. From the beginning, how- ever, quantum mechanics has also supplied an extraordi- nary and even counter-intuitive view of nature: contrary to its success, the predictions by quantum theory are governed by a probability law and its logic is different from that in classical physics, to which we have become accustomed to in our ordinary lives.
The Wonders of Light
The awe-inspiring power of light and the impact of light-based technology on our daily lives are explored in a visually stunning new book called The Wonders of Light.
The book, which is due to be published on May 28th 2015, brings to life the principles underpinning some of the most ground-breaking technological innovations, and it reveals the science behind light and the ways it can be harnessed and used, from visual displays, solar cells and the internet to advanced quantum technologies.
ELI-NP Centre in Bucharest visited by the President of Romania
On February 19th, 2015 Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania, paid a visit to the ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics) Research Center under construction in Bucharest-Magurele, on the premises of the “HoriaHulubei” National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering. ELI-NP will create a new European laboratory to consistently investigate a very broad range of science domains, from new fields of fundamental physics, new nuclear physics and astrophysics topics to applications in material science, life sciences and nuclear materials management.
Nanometres in 3D
Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute and ETH Zurich (Switzerland) have created 3D images of tiny objects showing details down to 25 nanometres (1 nanometre = 1 millionth of a millimetre). In addition to the shape, the scientists determined how particular chemical elements were distributed in their sample and whether these elements were in a chemical compound or in their pure state.
First Iran Physics Tournament and International Year of Light 2015
The Ariaian Young Innovative Minds Institute [AYIMI] held the first Iran Physics Tournament in Iran with cooperation of Scientific- Student Society of Shahid Beheshti University in February 2015 and a selected team will participate in the International Physics Tournament 2015 in Poland.
