Editorial — Improving the image of physics

Ask any child to draw a picture of a scientist and you will receive, from that proud, smiling child, a picture of an elderly male with mad hair and a white lab coat. You, too, will smile, as you will be mildly amused by how even the youngest child absorbs our society’s stereotypes so readily. You may then become slightly annoyed by the stereotypical image, but may reassure yourself that this young person will soon learn how much more diverse scientists are in the real world.
But how to excuse Google the same mistake? A search will provide a collection of images which are at least as…

Editorial — Bringing Nobel Prize physics to high schools

Today much of the ethical and political decision-making involves some understanding of the nature of science, its strengths and limits. There is perhaps no better or more recent example of this need, than the debate that arose around the discovery of the Higgs Boson and the operation of LHC at CERN, which has sparked the imagination of authors of works of fiction, occasionally causing concern among the general public. To understand the role of science in deliberations about the projected outcomes of the experiments taking place in the LHC, their safety and value – given the immense investment in human and other resources involved – all students, including future scientists need…

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…

Editorial – Further structuring contacts within the EPS

Physics is a broad subject, but we are all aware of the way that it is divided into various themes, sometimes very different from each other, sometimes overlapping. Indeed, even when we publish our research, we are guided by schemes such as PACS, which has evolved over the years to encompass all areas of physics.
Within the European Physical Society [EPS], the technical organisation in terms of divisions and groups is similarly structured and has also evolved to cover all subjects in physics as well as areas of common interest such as Physics Education. This provides Individual Members of the EPS with the opportunity to interact with, and network with…

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…

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…

Editorial – Conference Commitment

One of the central activities of any scientific society is to organise conferences and meetings for its members. The European Physical Society [EPS] has just hosted one of its most successful conferences ever in Munich where the European Conference on Lasers and Electro optics and the International Quantum Electronics Conference [CLEO Europe-IQEC] were held over 12-16 May, and attracted a record number of more than 1600 registered attendees. CLEO Europe-IQEC conference is currently co-organised with partners OSA and the IEEE Photonics Society, but has been running in its core technical format for over 25 years. This record number of participants even…

Editorial – National Strengths

The European Physical Society [EPS] has a unique character amongst international learned societies. It fulfills a central federative role supporting its national member societies and it also carries out many highly successful specific European-scale actions through its Divisions and Groups, its conferences and its publications.

At first sight, it may seem that managing this dual role is intrinsically difficult but I cannot help but think that we make it more complicated than it really is. After all, the goal of the EPS is to support European-scale physics so…

Editorial – Challenging physics

It is a very exciting time for European and international physics, and I am honoured and delighted to serve as the EPS president for the coming two years. I am also extremely lucky to be assuming this role when EPS in such a wonderful position, with so many new initiatives put in place during the last two years. For this, I would like to take this opportunity to express sincere thanks on behalf of all EPS members for the dedication and hard work of our outgoing president Luisa Cifarelli.
Physics in the coming years and decades faces some pressing challenges. As physicists, we need no convincing…