PDF (11.37 MB) - Europhysics News

europhysicsnews
2011 • Volume 42 • number 5
Europhysics news is the magazine of the European
physics community. It is owned by the European
Physical Society and produced in cooperation
with EDP Sciences. The staff of EDP Sciences
are involved in the production of the magazine
and are not responsible for editorial content.
Most contributors to Europhysics news are
volunteers and their work is greatly appreciated
by the Editor and the Editorial Advisory Board.
Europhysics news is also available online at:
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Editor: Claude Sébenne (FR)
email: claude.sebenne@impmc.upmc.fr
Science Editor: Jo Hermans (NL)
email: Hermans@Physics.LeidenUniv.nl
Executive Editor: David Lee
email: d.lee@eps.org
Graphic designer: Xavier de Araujo
email: x.dearaujo@eps.org
Director of Publication
Jean-Marc Quilbé
Editorial Advisory Board
Giorgio Benedek (IT), Marc Besançon (FR),
Charles de Novion (FR), Adelbert Goede (NL),
Agnès Henri (FR), Martin Huber (CH),
Frank Israel (NL), Thomas Jung(CH),
George Morrison (UK), Malgorzata Nowina
Konopka (POL), Teresa Peña (PT), Mirjana
Popović-Božić (Serbia), Stephen Price (UK),
Christophe Rossel (CH), Markus Schwoerer (DE).
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ISSN 0531-7479 • ISSN 1432-1092 (electronic edition)
Fabrègue • Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, France
Dépôt légal: October 2011
ediTorial
A Year of Light: the EPS launch
�e EPS-coordinated project, which requests the declaration of an International
Year of Light in 2015, was formally launched during the joint EPS-SIF
workshop Passion for Light on the 16 September.At the beautiful Villa Monastero
– in Varenna, Italy – over a hundred distinguished physicists and guests participated
in the announcement of the project’s scope and goals, followed by a day
long series of seminars covering all aspects of light.
Speakers included Nobel laureate, �eodor Haensch; quantum optics pioneer,
Peter Knight; and the former Director General of CERN, Luciano Maiani. In
addition, Mario Scalet, Head of the Science Unit of the UNESCO Venice office,
described the general roles of UNESCO in supporting science, culture and education,
while the Director of UNESCO’s optics education programme, Joseph
Niemela, provided an overview of the many outreach activities that UNESCO
sponsors around the theme of light and its applications. Robert Kirby-Harris,
Secretary General of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP),
expressed the clear interest of IUPAP in this light initiative of the EPS.
By bringing together participants from so many different fields,Passion for Light showed
very clearly how light impacts on all areas of science. �e International Year of
Light will aim to globally promote the fundamental understanding of light’s importance
more widely, focusing equally on issues of science, education and outreach.
�e declaration of International Years can only be made by the United Nations
General Assembly, and the EPS is now leading a large network of partners to
work through the necessary administrative steps to declare 2015 the International
Year of Light.
2015 is a natural choice, as it sees the convergence of a remarkable series of anniversaries
in our understanding of light: 200 years since Fresnel’s mémoire on
diffraction introduced the notion of the wave nature of light; 150 years since
Maxwell’s work on electromagnetism paved the way for technologies from lasers
to mobile phones; 100 years since Einstein and Hilbert established light and ‘c’
as an essential part of space and time, in the equations of General Relativity;
and 50 years since Penzias and Wilson discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background,
the electromagnetic echo of the Big Bang.
�e first major step for the project is a formal request for endorsement from the
General Assembly of the IUPAP in November. If all goes to plan, the next steps
in 2012 and 2013 will involve wider discussions with scientific unions – equivalent
to IUPAP – in other disciplines, and approaches to the UN via the UNESCO
executive board.
In parallel,the EPS will continue to coordinate contact with national physical societies
and other interested partners,and detailed planning for activities will begin.�e
general structure of the year-long activities has already been established,and will be
focused around four broad themes, covering the fundamental science of light, the
use of light as an enabling technology, the application of light to improve the quality
of life in the developing world and an educational theme studying the
pioneering scientists who have studied light and optics throughout history.
Light is a topic that cuts across science, technology, art and culture; and is the
means by which humanity understands itself and the universe. �e International
Year of Light would be a tremendous opportunity to ensure the necessary global
awareness of the importance of light – and the EPS, alongside the other invested
partners, is putting its full support behind the project to ensure its success. ■
III Luisa Cifarelli 1 and John Dudley 2 ,
1 President of the EPS
2 Secretary of the International Year of Light Project (light@eps.org)
EPN 42/5 03