Category: Australian Institute of Physics Congress

• The catastrophe of 4 degree rise – warning for Lima talks
• Lab junk into LabPunk
• Strobe light flashes to capture a speeding electron
• Using spider-web fibre optics for the world wide web
• Shrinking X-ray microscopes for a closer look at the cellular world

These topics and more on day two of the national physics conference – Tuesday 9 December

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• laser rod to lapel pin
• space–time silver cuff
• complex art from simple rules
• geometry, videos and lace on exhibition

Artworks inspired by science are on display and under discussion at the national physics and optics congress at the Australian National University in Canberra from 7 to 11 December. The congress theme is ‘The Art of Physics’.

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• Letting first-year students loose in the lab

• Girls in physics—what’s keeping the door closed?

• MOOCs—better than uni?

• Special effects improve understanding of complex science

Speakers available for interview in Canberra. Photos available. Stories embargoed until conference presentation.

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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. Read More about Women in physics still going backwards

• 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

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Australian researchers are taking the twinkle out of stars for the world’s biggest light telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile.

And a new optical fibre – which can only be made in Australia – could detect corrosion in the metal of aircraft bodies, ships and bridges.

Hear about these stories and more at the national physics and optics congress in Sydney – AIP/ACOFT 2012, at the University of New South Wales, Kensington this week.

Read More about Goodbye twinkle, hello stars – physics in Sydney

Quantum computers promise ultra-powerful, high speed number crunching. They’ll help us to search vast databases and model biological molecules at an atomic level.

Read More about How close is a quantum computer?