The general focus of the conference is “Active learning – in a changing world of new technologies”. Keynote speakers have been invited to discuss this topic: Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University, USA; Josip Slisko, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico; Kyoko Ishii, University of Fukui, Japan: Pratibha Jolly, University of Delhi, India; Leopold Mathelitsch, University of Graz, Austria; Irena Dvorakova, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic; Rupert Leitner, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic; and Douglas Caldwell, NASA-SETI, USA.

The conference is organized by the International Commission on Physics Education [ICPE], the Physics Educational Division of the European Physical Society [EPS PED], and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague.

Abstracts can be submitted until the 30 April 2013. To benefit from the normal registration fee, participants must register by June 2013.

The conference newsletter, and more information regarding travel and accommodation are available on the conference website.

The conference aims to present the current status of research and advanced discoveries in the field of magnetic materials.

The conference consists of 9 symposia covering the following topics: Spin electronics; Magnetization dynamics and magnetization processes; Magnetism in metal alloys and intermetallics; Magnetic materials for energy, Magnetic nanostructures, surfaces, interfaces, molecular nanomagnets; Magnetic Recording, sensors and microwave devices; Strongly correlated electron systems including magnetism and superconductivity; Medical, biomedical, biomagnetic and biotechnology applications; Multiferroics, frustrated and disordered magnets.

A best poster prize is being given by the European Physical Society [EPS] to encourage the presentation of papers by students.

Online registration is open until 17 August 2013 and participants can benefit from discounted registration fees if they register before the 13 July 2013. Grants may be available for students.

More information can be found on the conference website.

The conference will be held at the Politechnic of Milan in the context of the celebrations for its 150th anniversary. It will be a major event with 12 plenary sessions, 9 parallel sessions with more that 100 invited speakers coming from many different countries.

The conference fee is particularly low and low cost lodging will be available in the University residences.

More details are available on the conference website.

This international conference provides a forum for scientists working on the orbital angular momentum of light, aiming to identify new developments and directions in the field. The list of invited speakers is already available online.

The ICOAM 2013 is organised by the Institute of Physics [IoP] and co-sponsored by the European Physical Society [EPS].

The participants can benefit from a discount on their registration fees if they register before the 1 May 2013. The registration is open until the 22 May 2013.

More information is available on the conference website.

Videoconference during the Master classes

In the Master class, students gained insight into the international organization of modern research in an authentic environment. At the same time, they learned about the world of subatomic particles through easy-to-understand presentations by physicists. “Students can work on real data from the LHC, collected just few months ago,” says Michael Kobel, physics professor at the Technical University Dresden, Germany, and head of the program. Three experiments – ATLAS, CMS, and ALICE – have made data available for educational use within the program. For example, students could rediscover the Z boson or the structure of the proton, reconstruct “strange particles”, or hunt for the Higgs boson.

Scientists at 160 universities and laboratories in 37 countries hosted Master classes. New participants in the program came from the Middle East (Cyprus, Egypt, Palestinian Authority, and Turkey) and from Romania. The worldwide participation reflects the international collaboration in particle physics. Students were able to experience this international aspect in a videoconference concluding their day of research with students in other countries and with CERN or Fermilab participants where they presented their findings.

More information is available on the International Master classes website.

Opening a new window on the Universe: the future Gravitational Wave detectorsⁱ
by Michele Punturo

Thanks to a worldwide scientific and technical effort, the second generation of gravitational wave interferometers will be soon operative. These new detectors will open a new era for the observation of the Universe. Will the gravitational messenger unravel the enigmas still unsolved in astrophysics and cosmology?

My amazing experienceⁱⁱ
by Ofri Kahana

In my junior year at high school I was offered to do a physics project instead of the ordinary exam. The idea of conducting real scientific research intrigued me, so I started working right away with Haggai Landa from the University of Tel Aviv as my guide. We performed various ion-trapping simulations of equally charged cold ions in Multipole Paul traps. We studied their structures, the configurations they created (such as crystals of one or more rings), defects, and the vibrations they performed around the minimum of their potential energy. Moreover, I visited Roee Ozeri’s laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the only place in Israel where experiments with actual ion traps are being conducted. Little did I know that later on a Nobel Prize would be given in this very field of quantum optics, which at first was so new and unfamiliar to me.

Inspiring learning environment, the school as a three-dimensional text bookⁱⁱⁱ
by Mirjana Božić

History teaches us that knowledge about basic natural laws often began with observations of intriguing phenomena in nature. As a next step scientists started to perform measurements in the environment and later in their laboratories. Good physics teaching should provide opportunities for students to repeat the observations and reasoning of great scientists. This requires distribution of equipment over a wider space than just the classroom: think of corridors, courtyards and roofs. Consider the school building and its environment as a 3D lecture book and science lab.

Beauty in disguise – the physics behind the power grid^iv
by Christian Ohler

The power system is built from four main components – overhead lines, transformers, generators, and circuit breakers. Physics determines their shape, and by looking at their shape, we learn how power grids work.

1. Michele Punturo. 2013. Opening a new window on the Universe: the future Gravitational Wave detectors. EPN, Vol. 44, No. 2. DOI: 10.1051/epn/2013201
2. Ofri Kahana. 2013. My amazing experience. EPN, Vol. 44, No. 2. DOI: 10.1051/epn/2013202
3. Mirjana Božić . 2013. Inspiring learning environment, the school as a three-dimensional text book. EPN, Vol. 44, No. 2. DOI: 10.1051/epn/2013203
4. Christian Ohler. 2013. Beauty in disguise – the physics behind the power grid. EPN, Vol. 44, No. 2. DOI: 10.1051/epn/2013204

In order to make the most accurate measurements of the antiprotons’ properties, the ATRAP’s team was able to confine individual antiprotons using the so-called Penning trap, a sort of electromagnetic cage. This device, which is cooled down to very low temperatures (4.2K) to avoid the annihilation of the antiprotons, allows the scientists to perform a direct measurement of the antiproton magnetic moment – an intrinsic property that characterizes its behavior under a magnetic field – with high precision.

The physicists were able to estimate the antiproton magnetic moment with an unprecedented uncertainty of just 4.4 parts per million, about 680 times more precise than any previous result.

Extensive comparisons of the properties of antiproton and proton are of utmost importance since the fundamental cause of the dramatic imbalance of matter and antimatter in the Universe has yet to be addressed. For instance, by comparing the antiproton’s magnetic moment to that of the proton, scientists are able to probe one of the most fundamental symmetries, known as CPTⁱ, at high precision.

As expected by the predictions of the Standard Model and the CPT theorem, the team found that the magnetic moments of the antiproton and proton are equal in strength but opposite in direction with an unprecedented high precision of 5 parts per million. Even though this result had been already confirmed with previous experiments, it is crucial to test the Standard Model predictions much more stringently since this fundamental model, as reliable as it has been proven over the years, does not account for all forces present in the Universe, such as the gravity.

When CERN resumes antiproton operations in 2014, the ATRAP team plans to incorporate state-of-the-art quantum methods that will allow increasing the accuracy of the measurements. This should make possible to eventually test the Standard Model and the CPT symmetry by comparing the proton and antiproton to a 1 part per billion precision or better.

More information can be found in CERN website.

1. CPT symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of physical laws under transformations that involve the simultaneous inversion of charge parity and time.

According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe rapidly expanded from extremely hot and dense plasma of photons, electrons, and protons. Only after 380 000 years, the Universe cooled sufficiently – at about 3000K – to permit the combination of protons and electrons to form neutral hydrogen atoms, setting the photons free so the Universe was finally transparent to radiation. As the Universe has expanded, this light has been stretched out to microwave wavelengths, which can be observed by Planck.

Planck’s map shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions of slightly different densities, i.e. represent the seeds forming the current stars and galaxies. Planck was designed to map these fluctuations across the whole sky with greater resolution and sensitivity than ever before.

Planck CMB

The Planck team found that the Universe is expanding at a slightly slower rate than was thought, making it around 13.82 billion years old, slightly older than previous estimates. Planck has also modified our understanding of the fundamental recipe of the Universe, with ordinary and dark matter making up a rather larger percentage than before and dark energy, a mysterious force thought to be responsible for accelerating the expansion of the Universe, accounts for less than previously estimated.

The precision of Planck’s map is so high that it also made it possible to reveal some unexplained features that may well require new physics to be understood. One of the most surprising findings is that the fluctuations in the CMB temperatures at large angular scales do not match those predicted by the standard model. Another is that the CMB map looks different in opposite hemispheres of the sky, implying that the universe is not the same in all directions.

Planck’s CMB map is based on the initial 15.5 months of operations. The analysis of the Planck data is due to continue, with the full mission results expected in 2014.

More information can be found in ESA website.

New EPS Individual Members in 2012

Even better news as seen on the table and figure is that 24% of the new Individual Members are female, up from under 15% in 2009. We are therefore showing significant progress on both gender balance and overall numbers.

The cherry on the cake is that a carefully targeted conference, the International Conference on Nanoscience + Technology [ICN+T2012], held from 23-27 July 2012 in Paris led to an amazing 823 additional new members with a similar gender spread. Of course, this conference-related membership increase was not included in the statistics, but we are hoping that it will pass the test of time and be included in the future.

Naturally, we can only hope that this actively trawled new membership will pass the test of time, which is why it was not included in the trend statistics.