Australia’s physicists will hear today that they’re still losing the fight for gender equity in the physical sciences.

International and national speakers at the national physics congress in Canberra today will reveal:

• Australian schoolgirls still prefer life sciences to physical sciences (chemistry, physics etc) – with a 2:1 ratio

• At university that worsens to 4:1 locking out women from many career options

• The proportion of women in senior science positions is improving at just 1 per cent per annum, and going backwards in lower levels.

• UK physicists are fixing the problem with Project Juno. Could Australia follow them?

There are also some remarkable role models of women in physics speaking at the conference including: string theory guru Lisa Randall, SKA astronomer Lisa Harvey-Smith, Bronwyn Dolman studying weather and footballers’ hamstrings; Elisabetta Barberio looking for dark energy in a gold mine; quantum computing guru Michelle Simmons and many others. [continue reading…]

• Obama’s energy guru on managing climate change and growth

• 11 dimensions and librettos – Harvard physicist Lisa Randall

• Women in physics going backwards

Day one at the national physics and optics congress

[continue reading…]

Coming up next week:

Fusion power in five years, 30 years or never; dark matter in a gold mine; lasers and burps, eleven dimensions, the worldwide spider web, and much more at the biennial physics congress in Canberra opening Monday morning.

And today – How obesity causes hypertension, a Monash paper in Cell

We also have five free tickets for journalists to see James Randi in Melbourne tonight at 6pm at the Convention Centre.

The physics conference highlights include:

• The catastrophe of a four degree temperature rise. Steve Sherwood’s work on clouds suggests it’s more likely. But are they listening in Lima?
• At the National Press Club Steven Chu on prudent management of risks of climate change with continued economic growth.
• Looking for dark matter in the Stawell Gold Mine
• Why we need 11 dimensions, and physics librettos – Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall
• Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist at the University of Arizona, who thinks Lisa’s ideas are far too complex, and also wrote The Physics of Star Trek
• Women in physics are still going backwards – in schools, and academia in Australia. Speakers tell us how bad it is. Then UK physics leader Frances Saunders will tell us how to fix it
• A portable synchrotron? The $200 million Australian Synchrotron’s X-ray microscopes are amazing. A Monash physicist thinks he can create a lab bench sized X-ray microscope.
• The sound of a dozen birds – a system that can recognise any sound is being used to track the elusive orange-bellied parrot and can follow twelve songs at once – bird, fish, whale, human…
• The beauty and serendipity of blue sky research – Serge Haroche from the College De France, who won a Nobel for trapping photons between super-reflective mirrors
• Brian Schmidt from the ANU, whose Nobel-winning discovery that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating won his team the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics last month.

It’s Australia’s biennial physics congress—this year, it’s in Canberra from 7 to 11 December. Here are some of the highlights. All stories are embargoed until presentation at the conference. [continue reading…]

This week the magician and sceptic James Randi begins touring the country. Back in the day he debunked Uri Geller’s psychic spoon-bending. More below.

And then next week I’ve got:

• Nobel winners on the future of energy and science
• lasers measuring burping cows
• spiders making optical fibres
• the truth about fusion power
• arguments about the number of dimensions in the Universe
• the maths of The Great War
• the physics of Star Trek
• physics jewellery and art.

It’s Australia’s biennial physics congress —this year, it’s in Canberra from 7 to 11 December. Here are some of the highlights. All stories are embargoed until presentation at the conference.  [continue reading…]

Posted on behalf of Rob Robinson, President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

It’s time to start packing your bags for the 2014 AIP Congress, which opens in Canberra on Sunday 7 December.

If you can’t come, you can follow us on Twitter at @aipc2014 or #aipc2014, or see our visiting speakers at public lectures and forums, including Nobel laureate Steven Chu’s televised address to the National Press Club (see the event listing below). There’s also still time to register.

The program includes some speakers and posters to close off the International Year of Crystallography, and many, many others fitting the theme of the coming International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies. And our Art of Physics theme has been taken up by both speakers and exhibitors.

With so many good presentations, I advise you to plan in advance which talks to attend. A good way of doing this is by using the AIP 2014 mobile apps for phones and tablets—see below for links to download them.

One of the great privileges for me at the Congress is the chance to celebrate the achievements of our AIP medal and award winners. One of these is Les Kirkup, whose contributions to hands-on physics education have won him the 2014 AIP Education Medal. You can read about Les below.

And Yuri Kivshar will receive the biannual Harrie Massey Medal for his work in the exciting new field of nonlinear optics and metamaterials, which you can also read about below.

Congratulations again to Brian Schmidt and his colleagues, this time for receiving a share of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe and its implications for dark energy. Brian has said he’ll donate part of his prize to promote gender diversity in science.

Other prizes announced recently included the honorific awards from the Australian Academy of Science. We list below all the physicists, geophysicists and mathematicians studying physics-related problems who received awards.

These winners include Michelle Simmons from UNSW, who will also be taking up the post of editor-in-chief of npj Quantum Information, a new, open-access journal and the first Australian-based Nature Partner Journal.

New prize opportunities we’re featuring this month are the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Young Scientist Prizes in laser physics and photonics. These prizes will be awarded in June next year in Germany—see below for how to apply.

Speaking of Germany, a recent visitor to our shores was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, named by Forbes magazine as the most powerful woman in world. This surely makes her the most powerful physicist in the world as well.

I was fortunate to be invited to attend a reception with her in Sydney, where she spoke about importance of science and technology, particularly for Australia–Germany relations, and how she’ll lobby for a free-trade agreement. Closer ties between the two countries will hopefully lead to greater opportunities for us in physics.

On a more personal note, I’m sad to report the unexpected death of my friend and AIP member George Collins. George contributed greatly to ANSTO and other organisations over the years, and has recently been an inspiring leader of research at Swinburne University in Victoria.

This is my final newsletter for 2014, and I wish everyone a happy and safe summer break, as well as a successful, inventive and prosperous New Year (of Light). And I look forward to seeing many of you in Canberra! [continue reading…]

Posted on behalf of Rob Robinson, President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

The 2014 Nobel Prizes have been announced, and both the physics and chemistry prizes fit neatly with the coming International Year of Light.

Blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have opened up a new era in energy-efficient lighting and computer and smartphone displays. They earned the Nobel Prize in Physics for Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura. As my Japanese colleagues have proudly indicated, this is also a win for applied physics, with much of the initial work having been done in industry.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry also went to a team of physicists. Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner’s microscopy techniques give a resolution better than the diffraction limit of light. And since the announcement, news has emerged of another advance by Eric Betzig in the safe illumination and observation of living cells—more details below.

These Nobel Prize winning technologies are also used at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging, which I was pleased to see launched recently. This new Centre brings physicists, chemists and biologists together to change the way we see the immune system and to help tackle cancer, infections and auto-immune diseases.

Congratulations too to all the winners at the 2014 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, especially Matthew Hill, winner of the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year for his work on nanoporous crystals, and astronomy and physics teacher Geoff McNamara, who won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools. You can read their stories below.

Our annual Women in Physics lecture series continues this month, as Sheila Rowan from the University of Glasgow brings her talks on gravitational wave detection to Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland. With clever use of props, such as a yo-yo, a whistle and ball bearings on a rubber sheet, her lectures engage school students and the public alike.

Another overseas visitor soon to arrive is the influential American theoretical particle physicist, cosmologist and author Lisa Randall. She’ll be one of the key speakers at the 2014 AIP Congress in Canberra in December—you can read more about her below.

Next Thursday is the annual AIP Physics in Industry day, with the theme this year being ‘Physics of the Mind. To get you thinking in advance of the event, we’re featuring an essay by our NSW Branch chair Scott Martin on the possibility and danger of artificial consciousness.

Australian science still faces funding uncertainty following threats to the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS) and the Future Fellows scholarship program. Science and Technology Australia (STA), of which the AIP is a member, is urging the government not to waste these programs’ valuable investments and opportunities. You can read the STA statement below.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, the AIP’s new Executive Committee will be elected unopposed at our next AGM. This will take place on 2 February 2015—full details are below. [continue reading…]

Posted on behalf of Rob Robinson, President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

Secret keys hidden in beams of light used to guarantee secure communication are part of the new age of quantum technology. I’m pleased to announce that commercialising quantum key distribution through their company QuintessenceLabs has won the team of Ping Koy Lam, T. C. Ralph and Thomas Symul the AIP’s Alan Walsh Medal for Service to Industry.

The medal will be presented along with other AIP medals and awards at our Congress in Canberra in December, where there you can hear more about exploring the quantum world from our high-profile guest speakers.

One of these guests is French physicist Serge Haroche, who won a Nobel Prize in 2012 for trapping photons between superconducting mirrors. You can read more about his work below.

You can also learn about quantum physics with a series of YouTube videos from UNSW physicist Andrea Morello, who last year won the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year at the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science.

Our 2014 Women in Physics lecturer Sheila Rowan, director of the Institute for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow, arrives this month. She’s kicking off her national tour with public and school talks in Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT. With the dust settling on claims of primordial gravitation wave discovery, now is a good time to hear about experiments to directly detect these ripples in space-time.

Preparations continue for the International Year of Light in 2015, with another briefing event planned for next Monday in Melbourne. We’ve already had great discussions at events in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra, so it’s worth coming along if you want to be involved.

Another highly anticipated AIP event is next month’s NSW Physics in Industry Day, which this year will have the all-encompassing theme of ‘Physics of the Mind’. There is sure to be lively discussion from many different perspectives, and the event will be covered by ABC TV’s Big Ideas program—so register now. [continue reading…]

Posted on behalf of Rob Robinson, President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

2015 is the International Year of Light, giving all those of us who work with light a chance to shine. That covers most of physics, from nanophotonics through to astronomy.

We’re supporting our cognate, the Australian Optical Society, who are leading the way with activities around the country. In the next few weeks they’ll be holding networking events in different states to build momentum and share ideas. You can find out the details and register to attend by emailing light@scienceinpublic.com.au.

Using laser light to trap and cool atoms earned Steven Chu a Nobel Prize in Physics. He’ll be one of the headline speakers at this December’s AIP Congress in Canberra, and we profile him in this bulletin.

Postgraduate students in NSW and WA have the opportunity to win prizes for presenting their research, at events hosted by their state AIP branches. Registrations for both of these close soon, so read on and see how you can take part.

AIP Fellow and former President Tony Thomas was recently named South Australian Scientist of the Year, a worthy accolade for his decades of work here and overseas exploring the subatomic structure of matter. [continue reading…]

Posted on behalf of Rob Robinson, President of the Australian Institute of Physics.

Once again it’s that exciting time of year, when scientists and science-lovers across Australia join together for National Science Week. This year’s festival officially runs for nine days, from 16 to 24 August. At the time of writing there are almost 700 events in the National Science Week calendar, with more being added all the time. This special bulletin brings you some of the physics highlights.

Juan Collar from the University of Chicago is a leader in dark matter research. He’ll be giving a series of free public lectures in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, in which he’ll talk about how researchers hunt for dark matter particles, often underground in mines and tunnels to reduce interference from known particles. He’ll discuss the challenges, the progress so far, and his optimism that discovery may be near.

In Tasmania, Australia’s Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt will describe the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe and the existence of Dark Energy. In lectures in both Launceston and Hobart, he will explain how astronomers, like his own High-Redshift Supernova Search Team, have used observations to trace our universe’s history back more than 13 billion years, leading them to ponder the ultimate fate of the cosmos.

Those in Western Australia can attend the AIP WA Branch’s Physics in Industry evening, bringing together physicists from industry, universities and elsewhere in an informal setting to share information and celebrate our common interests.

Stories of scientific and technological achievements from Melbourne will be told and celebrated by an expert panel, including the AIP’s past-president Cathy Foley.

And elsewhere:

• The Sydney Science Forum will look at how physics is revolutionising medicine with new imaging techniques and nano-medicine.
• The Everyday Einstein series at the Queensland Museum & Sciencentre will showcase young researchers and the Australian Synchrotron.
• Astronaut Chris Hadfield of Space Oddity fame will appear in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
• The Darwin Deckchair Cinema will put on a free screening of the documentary Particle Fever, about the discovery of the Higgs boson.
• Astronomy nights around the country, but especially in outback areas, will treat stargazers to a view of western and Aboriginal astronomy.

Follow the links below to find out more about the selected events, and look for the AIP logo  to see the events that the AIP is involved with. You can view the full Science Week program at www.scienceweek.net.au, and you will also find plenty of great events after the 24 August too. [continue reading…]