Author: Luc Bergé

Only two months before the major EPS event of 2024! you can still register to participate in the EPS Forum that will take place at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, on 25th and 26th March 2024.

Devoted to a rich variety of hot topics in physics - from atomic physics, photonics, condensed matter physics to nuclear physics and energy management - the EPS Forum will propose exceptional presentations given by industrial leaders and world-renowned physicists together with exciting round tables on urgent societal challenges.

Opened by European Commissioner Iliana Ivanova, the 25^th March will be dedicated to the employment of early career physicists. The 26^th March will allow participants to listen to talks given by prestigious invited speakers, including the Nobel Laureates Anne L'Huillier, Klaus von Klitzing, Stefan Hell, and Nicola Spaldin, member of the ERC Scientific Council. 

Check the programme at https://epsforum.org/programme/ and register at https://www.epsforum.org/register/

The EPS will support the travel and lodging expenses of 100 students!

image credit: University of Basel

22nd September 2023, University of Basel
Original publication: Website of the Swiss Physical Society

The event is intended to honor Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782, a member of the world-renowned Bernoulli family of mathematicians and scientists that had been based in Basel since 1623), especially for his role in the development of physics in Switzerland, Europe, and the world, by making the original site of his research in Basel, the Physics Cabinet in the Stachelschützenhaus, an EPS Historic Site.

Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) studied initially medicine in Basel, Heidelberg, and Strasbourg, concluding with a thesis on respiration (containing experimental and mathematical approaches). During his scientific life he worked across many disciplines (with a focus on physics and its mathematical foundations). In 1725 he was appointed to the St. Petersburg Academy. In 1726 Leonhard Euler followed him to St. Petersburg. Later on Bernoulli intended to return to Basel for a chair in physics. But only after a vacancy in 1733 he was first successful in obtaining a professorship in anatomy and botany, being offered finally a professorship in physics in 1750. He then taught physics until 1776.

His most comprehensive work, the "Hydrodynamica" of 1733/1738 achieved a fundamental advance in hydrodynamics and laid the foundation for later progress, which included the well-known "Bernoulli Principle", relating the speed of a fluid to its potential energy. He published 74 papers and won a total of 10 Grand Paris Academy Prizes for topics in astronomy, physics, and applications to nautical problems. He was a pioneer in the development of mathematical physics by using the powerful calculus of Leibniz in Newton’s theories.

Bernoulli's predecessor as professor of physics at the University of Basel, Benedict Staehelin (1695-1750), had started a collection of physics devices and instruments that he had acquired for demonstration purposes. These pieces were set up in the 'Physics Cabinet' (the south wing of the "Stachelschützenhaus", built in 1729). Bernoulli added many more apparatuses for his research and lectures on physics – among them the experiment for the "Demonstration of the Hydrostatic Paradox" – which demonstrates that the pressure in a liquid is independent of the shape of the vessel and depends only on the height of the liquid column. Bernoulli had thus significantly expanded the collection of Basel's 'Physics Cabinet'.

While the "Stachelschützenhaus" has later been used by various other University Institutes (presently it hosts the Clinical Virology), it was the place, where Daniel Bernoulli worked for a quarter of a century, undertook research and gave his public experimental physics lectures that enjoyed great popularity. For this reason the EPS has accepted our proposal to make the "Stachelschützenhaus" an EPS Historic Site. The inauguration will take place on 22nd September 2023.

Organisation: Philipp Treutlein, Chair of the Physics Department, Ernst Meyer, President Platform MAP/SCNAT, Friedrich-Karl Thielemann, Prof. emer.

Overview of the program

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) Center for the History of Physics and the Niels Bohr Archive are pleased to host the fifth international conference for graduate students and early career scholars, to be held from 31st August to 3rd September 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark. “Early Career” includes graduate students and recent PhDs, independent scholars, post-docs, and those in early-stage academic positions.

The goal of this conference is to foster communication and collaboration across national and disciplinary boundaries amongst junior scholars and to provide a forum for exploring and reflecting upon current issues in the historiography of the physical sciences. In addition to sessions with submitted papers, the conference program will feature roundtables, workshops, and other events designed to promote a community of scholars and develop career skills. The conference will also provide an opportunity for junior scholars to interact with invited senior scholars.

We welcome submissions, including works-in-progress, from all time periods and areas of the history of the physical sciences, including the earth sciences, industrial physics, astronomy, chemistry, space sciences, and more. All historiographical perspectives are welcome, from socio-cultural to highly technical. Past subject areas in the history of the physical sciences have included biographies of physical scientists, histories of education, technology, issues of gender and race, intellectual movements, and more. Cross-disciplinary perspectives are welcomed.

Presentations should be 20 minutes in length. Paper proposals should include the following:

• Your name
• E-mail address
• Institutional affiliation
• Presentation title and abstract (250 words max. not including title)
• A short biography, indicating where you are in your studies and/or career (250 words max.).

Supplementary travel funds will be available for all participants.

Paper proposals should be sent as an attachment in a single document (.pdf, .docx, or .doc) to EarlyCareer.AIP@gmail.com or uploaded to the conference website by 1st March 2023. Applicants will be notified by 1st April 2023. Please let us know if you need an earlier notification. All questions may be directed to the conference committee at EarlyCareer.AIP@gmail.com.

https://www.aip.org/history-programs/physics-history/early-career-conference

Echophysics, the 2nd International Conference on the History of Physics, will take place in Pöllau, Austria, from 5-7 September 2016.

The deadline for submission of papers is Thursday 28 April 2016. 

Visit the conference website for complete information: http://www.historyofphysics.org/on-line-submissions