My name is Eva and I have been the chair of the European Physical Society (EPS) Young Minds (YM) project since last July. In 2010 I finished a degree in Computer Engineering and 3 years later I joined the Optics and Photonics Research Group of Castellón in Spain (GROC). Now I am doing my PhD at the University Jaume I in Castellón, and sometimes I wonder how a computer engineer can be the chair of a Committee engaging physics students in outreach. Here is a possible answer.
On the 29th of October (2016) more than 70 physicists attended the inauguration of the second EPS historic site in Sweden. The Uddmanska house in Kungälv, outside Göteborg, is where the Austrian-Swedish nuclear physicist Lise Meitner was staying when she understood that it was possible to split an atomic nucleus.
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, NJ-USA is one of the world’s foremost centers for curiosity-driven basic research. On 9 November 2016, the European Physical Society (EPS) and the American Physical Society (APS) were pleased to offically recognise the IAS as their first Joint Historic Physics Site in the United States. The text of the citation reads: “Honoring the pivotal contributions of the Institute for Advanced Study to the development of theoretical physics, including the work of Albert Einstein and many others.”
A knowledge-based society as fostered by the EU Lisbon Strategy plan actually requires a society-based knowledge, a knowledge with deep roots in the society. Scientific research is traditionally performed in hardly accessible academic institutions or in jealously protected industrial laboratories. There is a growing need for research activity to become a living part of society, to be perceived as a service bringing long-term benefits and a better quality of life.
During the second week of November 2016, the European Physical Society [EPS] Young Minds project, in close cooperation with the associations Migrations Co-developpement Alsace, Liter of light France and the University of Beni Mellal, developed solar kits lamps.
In September 2015, gravitational waves (GWs) were detected for the first time by the LIGO detectors, the two laser interferometers in the United States. It was found that detected GWs originate from the coalescence of two black holes (BHs) in a binary, each weighing about 30 times the mass of the Sun (30 solar mass). Although there have been indirect observations of BHs in the X-ray binaries, their masses are at most 15 solar masses.
Physics for All is a project of the German Physical Society (DPG) and the Georg-August-University Göttingen (DE), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The project is based on the idea that the phenomena of nature are universal. Playing with nature, doing physical experiments, are deep human needs, which do not require any language skills and are independent of any national, religious, age or gender boundaries.
The 72nd board of the Nuclear Physics Division (NPD) of the European Physical Society (EPS) was held on 27-29 September 2016 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, Dubna, RU).
The European Physical Society would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest and support throughout 2016.
The EPS secretariat will be closed between Christmas and New Year.
The EPS works to support its members. Find below the list of activities of the EPS Executive Committee and staff last month:
The International Conference on Statistical Physics SigmaPhi2017 will be held in Corfu, Greece, on 10-14 July, 2017.
The 8th Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics international conference [NPAVIII] will be held from 18-21 June 2017 at the INFN – Laboratori Nazionali del Sud in Catania, Italy. NPAVIII is supported by the European Physical Society.