Author: Dina Izadi

Art an Amazing Fact in Science

Integrating art and imaginative methods into science education can enhance conceptual understanding in a variety of ways. Creative activities can spark curiosity and wonder and lead to deeper exploration of science topics that reveal students’ understanding beyond traditional tests. Students learn to think outside the box, explore different perspectives, and find innovative solutions, which are essential in scientific inquiry. Art-based science projects often involve collaboration, fostering teamwork, and communication skills that lead to deeper and more meaningful understanding. 

The book Art an Amazing Fact in Science is the second book related to the IYPT Physics Competition which was published by the Ariaian Young Innovative Minds Institute, after the IYPT Proceeding 2010-2011. This book is a collection of physics problem solutions from various IYPT tournaments that combine science, art, and creativity: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/79055176c1.html

Reducing the Gap Between Science and Art, Creating Opportunities for Social Activities

This is a link to find our several festivals and after introducing ISAC (Imagination in Science by Art in different Cultures) in two previous years now we have started our new event as ISAC Talk festival .

We are going come together to hold various events in ISAC (Imagination in Science by Art in different Cultures) Talk Community which are useful in explaining scientific concepts by art especially when those concepts are complex. Community holds festival in different categories. By combining art and science, we can create powerful learning experiences that foster curiosity, understanding, and appreciation for the world around us.

Ariaian Young Innovative Minds Institute (AYIMI) and ADIB Science and Technology Institute (ADIB) jointly in Iran, are the main organisers of this event. There are several working groups from different countries who will join us and the main aim of this event is giving annual grants to students who needs to participate in tournaments, conferences, etc.

All related information and the rules are on our website: https://ayimi.org/en/

We are delighted to see the early signs of spring returning here in Les Ulis, Paris. Here we share a few updates regarding recent conferences, and a shift in our social media presence towards platforms that support our values of professionalism, transparency, and community-driven dialogue.

From Strangeness in Quark Matter to Nuclear Chemistry for Sustainable Fuel Cycles : EPJ Web of Conferences publishes two notable proceedings from French events

“SQM 2024 – The 21st International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter was held in Strasbourg, France, June 3-7, 2024

This 2024 edition marked the 21^st in the series and was held in France for the first time. It was also the first fully “in-person” edition since the pandemic. A total of 280 participants from 26 countries convened at the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès in Strasbourg to discuss recent experimental and theoretical advancements during a week-long programme including 210 oral and poster presentations.

The focus of the Strangeness in Quark Matter Conference is on the role of the strange and heavy-flavour quarks in the field of ultra–relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions, Quark Gluon Plasma physics and in astrophysical phenomena. Specific time is devoted to open questions and new developments as well as lectures dedicated to graduate students and young scientists.”

If this EPJ Highlight has piqued your interest, you can read the full proceedings in open access now.

B. Hippolyte (chair), C. Cheshkov, R. Guernane and A. Maire (Eds.), 21st International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM 2024), Strasbourg, France, June 3-7, 2024, EPJ Web of Conferences 316 (2025)

Organised by the French Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), the 6th International ATALANTE Conference on Nuclear Chemistry for Sustainable Fuel Cycles (ATALANTE-2024) was held in Avignon, France, Sept 1-6 2024

The event explored “subjects and issues that cover almost all the fields of the nuclear chemistry related to the nuclear fuel cycles:

• Actinide and fission product chemistry
• Uranium ore processing and purification
• Actinide separation
• Pyrochemistry and chemistry for molten salt reactor
• Actinide material & fuel fabrication
• Waste conditioning and long-term evolution
• Nuclear chemistry for geological repository
• Safeguards and analytical developments”

The full proceedings can be read in open access now.

P. Guilbaud (Ed.), 6th International ATALANTE Conference on Nuclear Chemistry for Sustainable Fuel Cycles (ATALANTE-2024), Avignon, France, September 1-6, 2024, EPJ Web of Conferences 317 (2025)

Nurting community dialogue on social media

EPL is now on Bluesky

Please follow https://bsky.app/profile/epljournal.bsky.socialfor the latest news and articles, including Free-to-Read Editor’s Choice and Perspectives.

EDP Sciences leaves Twitter/X

The academic world is changing, and so are we. On 31^st January 2025, EDP Sciences left Twitter/X as part of the #HelloQuitX movement, in favour of prioritising platforms that support our values. This decision reflects our commitment to professionalism, transparency, and community-driven dialogue. Follow us on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and our website for the latest updates.

Perpetual access to digital archives

We would like to take the opportunity to remind you that value is still being found in our digital archive collections, and that purchase of these gives perpetual access to this valuable science.

Journal de Physique digital archives (1872 to 1997)

We were delighted to conduct research in 2024 and discover that many articles in the Journal de Physique archives are still being cited today. The collection includes research from pioneers in physics, including Nobel laureates such as Marie Curie and Louis de Broglie, both of whom were instrumental in founding EDP Sciences in 1920.

Discover the Journal de Physique archives, including the most cited articles in the collection. 

Annales de Physique digital archives (1914 to 2009)

For many years, Alain Aspect, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022, was the Editor in Chief of the Annales de Physique. This collection now forms part of the archive of The European Physical Journal (EPJ), an ongoing series of peer-reviewed journals covering the whole spectrum of physics and related interdisciplinary subjects.

Learn more about the Annales de Physique archives.

The board produces publications on various nuclear physics related topics, for example so called EPS Position Papers and provides input to the EPS on issues related to nuclear physics and relations to other European and international bodies interested in nuclear physics and policy.  

For more information, you may visit the NPD website.
http://www.eps.org/?page=npd  

For a nomination to be valid:
 - the nomination has to be supported by two other Individual Members. They may either sign the nomination form or send a support letter independently by email.
 - it must be accompanied by a statement of consent from the nominee
 - the elected candidate must be or become an EPS Individual Member (https://www.eps.org/general/register_member_type.asp? )
 - the nominee must send a short CV in pdf or .doc format
- the nominee must send a half page candidate/campaign statement (length ½ page)

- it must be received at the EPS secretariat by 30th April 2025.
 
Please send it by e-mail to the two following addresses:
secretariat@eps.org and raquel.crespo@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

The United Nations has proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the birth of modern quantum mechanics — the theory that describes the behaviour of matter and energy at atomic and subatomic scales. The international year was launched on the 4th February 2025 with an event at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. With over 1000 participants the event brought together scientists, industrialists, students and members of the physics and quantum community. The EPS president attended alongside the presidents of the German, French and UK physical societies. Attendees heard from Nobel laurates Anne L’Huillier, Bill Philips, Alain Aspect and Serge Haroche, they were treated to discussions on the importance of quantum science for sustainable development, education in quantum fields and the current state of the quantum industrial sector. 

The EPS is a participating partner in the International Year of Quantum Science and Technologies and we are looking forward to events throughout the year. In April we will inaugurate the City of Göttingen as an EPS historic site. We are preparing a special issue of EPN on quantum science and technology and we are looking forward to the many and varied events which our member societies have planned throughout the year. These range from quantum games and even an escape room organised by the German and Swiss Physical societies, exhibitions of quantum science held at London’s Royal Society and la Palais de la Découverte in Paris. Publications highlighting historic journal articles from the Italian Physical Society and in Physics World, summer schools for undergraduate and post graduate students held in Lithuania and Moldova, France and Italy, plus events focused on Policy Makers in held not only Brussels but also in Poland. Finally, we should not forget education, many of our members are creating educational resources in their country’s languages, so that the fascinating topic of quantum science is accessible to everyone. 

FLTR: Doris Reiter, Karin Zach, Claus Lämmerzahl, Mairi Sakellariadou, Klaus Richter, Bernhard Nunner, Wiebke Schuppe und Dieter Meschede
Image credit: DPG

The Galilean Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts in Padua is now an EPS Historic Site, in honour of Galileo Galilei.

The plaque unveiling ceremony took place on January 18, 2025, conducted by the President of the European Physical Society (EPS), Prof. Mairi Sakellariadou, and the President of the Academy, Prof. Giovanna Zaniolo, during the annual academic Galilean Day, in the presence of the academicians and of the public (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Unveiling of the plaque. FLTR: Angela Bracco, President of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), Mairi Sakellariadou ,
President of the European Physical Society (EPS) and Giovanna Zaniolo, President of the Accademia Galileiana. Credits Accademia Galileiana.

The event began with an introduction by Prof. Zaniolo, including the reading of congratulatory messages from the Senator Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, Minister for Institutional Reforms and Regulatory Simplification, and the President of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia. This was followed by a brief explanation by myself of the motivations for the designation (see below), as well as remarks by Prof. Sakellariadou and Prof. Bracco, President of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), on the role of their respective Societies.

Fig. 2: The emblem of the Accademia Galileiana. Credits Accademia Galileiana.

The Academy is the oldest among the scientific ones still active in Italy, having been founded on November 25, 1599, under the name Accademia dei Ricovrati. Its motto, Bipatens animis asylum—inscribed on its emblem (Fig. 2)—is a verse from Boethius, inspired in turn by the allegoric description in Homer’s Odyssey of the Cave of the Naiads, with its two entrances. The motto was chosen to symbolize a refuge for the convergence of contemplative life and active life, between theoretical speculation and practical application.

Fig. 3: “Sala Guariento”, the meeting room of the Accademia. Credits Accademia Galileiana

The ceremony took place in the meeting room of the Accademia (Fig. 3). This, initially the Chapel of the Carrarese Palace, was magnificently decorated by Guariento di Arpo around 1350, one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. At the time, Padua was under the ruling of the Carrarese family, still independent of Venice, that will conquer it in 1405. Born five years after the departure of Giotto from Padua, Guariento dealt with the indelible footprint of the Tuscan genius, while developing an original pictorial language echoing the culture of his city. In the frescoes of the Chapel, he focuses on the divine power, narrating episodes from the Bible. The one in Fig. 4 is from the Book of Daniel, on the Babylonian exile of the Jews. Having three young Jews refused the order of Nebuchadnezzar to worship a statue, the king commanded to hurl them into a fiery furnace, but they were saved by the Angel of the Lord. In the painting, the king appears astonished, above the disordered mass of terrified soldiers, in stark contrast to the solemn calmness of the angel and the three victims, emerging unscathed from the furnace.

Fig. 4: The Three Young Men in the Fiery Furnace, by Guariento di Arpo. Credits Accademia Galileiana

The name of the Accademia was changed to Galileiana in recent years, to celebrate Galileo Galilei as one of its founding members. We read his name in the minutes of the first session on November 25, 1599, the only scientist amongst university professors of law and of philosophy, men of letters, learned nobles and quite a number of ecclesiastics. Some academicians were good friends of  the young Tuscan, having together discussions on a wide range of philosophical and cultural issues, being him versed in music, in drawing and in writing of science, not only opening the way to modern science but also as masterpieces of Italian literature. On the other hand, the fight would become unavoidable with the Paduan philosophers, dogmatic followers of Aristoteles, not able to accept the Galileian discoveries.

Galilei had already been active in the organization of the group since several months. Indeed, on the Ides of August 1599, he had signed a note in the Album amicorum of Thomas Seget, describing himself as “Noble Florentine Mathematician and Professor at the Paduan Academy.” Seget, a Scottish poet then in Veneto and one of the first foreign Ricovrati, would later be in Prague in 1610 with Kepler when the astronomer confirmed the Medicean Stars. There, Seget would compose the famous epigram with the words Vicisti Galileae.

Fig. 5: The trajectory of a projectile; a) asymmetric in Nova scientia by Nicolò Tartaglia in 1537; b) symmetric for Galilei in 1599

In his dedication, Galilei drew a parabola (Fig. 5 b) to illustrate the motion of projectiles, a trajectory he had discovered through an experiment conducted with Guidobaldo del Monte in 1592, the year Galilei arrived in Padua. In his book of motion, Discorsi e dimostrazioni intorno a due nuove scienze, published in 1638, Galilei will describe the experiment: he launched a metal, perfectly spherical, ball on an inclined surface, such that the ball, gently pressing on the surface, would leave a trace of its passage. The experiment is remarkably simple, and revolutionary. Until then, following Aristotle, it was believed that, on Earth, there were only two types of motion: violent and natural, both rectilinear—initially violent in the direction of the cannon's barrel, finally natural, vertically downward toward the Earth's centre, as the initial impetus was exhausted. This was also the case of the most important textbook on the subject, the Nova scientia by the great mathematician Nicolò Tartaglia. Galilei demonstrated that the motion is symmetrical in ascent and descent, entirely of the same type. This marked the beginning of his journey toward discovering the laws of motion, a path he was still following in 1599 and which would lead him to them in 1604.

The text of the plaque, after commemorating Galilei’s contributions, also notes that: “Among the early members of the Ricovrati was Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, elected a member in 1669 and that became the first woman in the world to earn a university degree in 1678. In subsequent centuries, the Academy counted among its members figures such as Benjamin Franklin and John Herschel among foreign scientists, and among Italians Tullio Levi-Civita, Gregorio Ricci Curbastro, Bruno Rossi and Antonio Favaro, who oversaw the monumental National Edition of the Works of Galileo Galilei.