Physics@Veldhoven brings 'heroes of physics' together
On 17 and 18 January 2017 the congress Physics@Veldhoven was a hive of activity. At the Koningshof conference centre, more than 2000 physicists came together to discuss the latest state of affairs in physics. The delegates had plenty of opportunity to network both within and outside of their own discipline. That is the strength of Physics@Veldhoven: the annual conference covers the entire spectrum of physics, from dark matter to solar fuels, and from string theory to research into the living cell. This year, as well as any other, the conference offered researchers a vibrant place to gain inspiration. The theme of 2017: heroes of physics.
The (inter)national 'heroes of physics' Martin Wegener, Jo van den Brand and Margaret Murnane gave this year's plenary lectures. Wegener opened with a lecture on the unusual properties of metamaterials, including non-optical metamaterials. During the second plenary lecture Van den Brand talked about gravitational waves and his dream to establish the Einstein observatory in Limburg. Murnane closed the congress with a lecture about developing practical, tabletop-scale x-ray lasers, by transforming beams of light from a visible laser into x-rays. In addition to this plenary programme, physicists working in the Netherlands offered more than 200 lectures and hundreds of poster presentations. Erik Verlinde was one of them: he had a full house of listeners, stating that at the very smallest scale gravity does not exist.
Masterclasses
For a hundred young researchers the congress started a day earlier. On Monday evening, Martin Wegener (Karlsruhe Institute of Technoloy), Jo van den Brand (Nikhef, Free University of Amsterdam), Elisabeth Bouchaud (PSL Research University) and Margaret Murnane (University of Colorado) gave masterclasses for this select group.
Last FOM Prizes
Stan Gielen, the new chair of NWO, presented the last three FOM prizes on Tuesday evening. The FOM Physics Thesis Prize 2016 was awarded to Julija Bagdonaitė. Ekkes Brück received the FOM Valorisation Prize 2016 and Slava Medvedev the FOM Valorisation Chapter Prize 2016. Next year, these annual prices will be renamed and awarded by the new NWO organisation.
Live experiments
During the conference, there was an opportunity to visit several live experiments. For example, visitors could discover the working of the European Spallation Source, or find out about programmable materials. There were a number of live experimenten that closely related to the theme of the conference. The subject 'science and superheroes' brought researchers from several universities and institutes together, to demonstrate how physics can open the door to superpowers. Consider, for instance, invisibility cloaks or impenetrable materials.
Workshops
Finally, participants were offered the opportunity to visit a number of workshops. The workshop Hidden Hero of Physics taught delegates how to channel their amazement and curiosity to inspire a broad audience with their work. Another event, called Physics meets Industry, offered participants a chance to network with industrial partners.
Poster Prize
Of course, scientific posters also had a prominent position at the congress. This year the jury chose the poster of Cunfeng Cheng as the best: he won the Physics@Veldhoven Poster Prize 2017.
2018
Next year Physics@Veldhoven will be held on 23 and 24 January 2018.
Additional information
- Further information about the congress can be found at www.fom.nl/veldhoven.
- Further information about the physics prizes can be found at www.fom.nl/prizes.
- Plenary lectures, masterclasses and the lecture by Erik Verlinde will soon be available on YouTube.
- Conference pictures can soon be found in our Archives.