SPG/SSP/SPS: Schweizerische Physikalische Gesellschaft
The Swiss Physical Society unites people interested in physics who are active in teaching, didactics, research, development in all branches of industry, at schools, in universities, and research laboratories and is actively organizing and participating in a variety of projects and events. The following highlights stand out:
The annual meeting 2019 was held jointly with our Austrian sister society ÖPG at the University Zürich on Campus Irchel, 26-30 August. As has become tradition between ÖPG and SPS, joint annual meetings are organized every second year, where we also alternate the place of venue to be either in Switzerland or in Austria.
This year’s edition included the participation of NCCR QSIT (Quantum Science and Technology), NCCR MaNEP (Materials with Novel Electronic Properties) and the Swiss Neutron Science Society (SGN/SSSN) which resulted in a well-attended conference.
A major focus was this year laid on the field of quantum science and quantum computing. First, on Monday, even before the official opening of the conference, two workshops on "Machine Learning for Experimental Quantum Physics" and on programming of quantum computers took place. Second, a public evening lecture given by Prof. Rainer Blatt (Uni Innsbruck) on "The quantum way of doing computations" introduced the field to a wider audience. The core event was the QSIT session with 32 contributions, complemented by a session focusing on job opportunities in emergent industries in the realm of quantum and artificial intelligence.
This year, the SPS also put a particular emphasis on recognizing the successful participation of Swiss high school students, gymnasium, bachelor and master students in international physics Olympiads or tournaments by inviting them to participate in a special event for this next generation of potential scientists.
The program consisted this year of 9 plenary talks, 1 public lecture, 11 topical sessions and a symposium. 354 contributions had been scheduled, 247 of them talks and 107 posters. The conference gathered nearly 500 participants, the Swiss participation amounted to ~ 73 %, the Austrian one to ~ 21%, the rest came from other countries.
The full programme of the Annual Meeting can be found in the Issue No 58 of the SPG Mitteilungen (https://www.sps.ch/artikel/communications) and interactively on the indico conference server, where many of the slides shown can be downloaded (https://indico.cern.ch/event/801048/timetable). A summary of the full event, with articles of the invited plenary speakers can be found in Issue No 59.
A special session, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the periodic table of chemical elements was organized jointly with SCNAT as closing event of the annual meeting, which was opened up for the public. A summary of this symposium, integrated in the annual meeting, can be found in the Issue No 59 of the SPG Mitteilungen and a webcast has been recorded, which is freely available online:
https://tube.switch.ch/cast/videos/dac7e688-8a2b-492d-98a5-877235965006
SPS is also fostering its presence at regional events, symposia, and meetings. Special highlights of 2019 were the 3rd International Jost Bürgi Symposium in Lichtensteig (Canton St. Gallen), Bürgi's birthplace, was again held over two days. Bürgi's historic context and his legacy in today's timekeeping in the field of sport and the path from the quartz to the atomic clock was discussed and presented to approximately 100 listeners. The lectures are available online at https://www.jostbuergi.com/symposium/ and https://www.jostbuergi.com/experten-workshop/ .
The SPS took Georges Lemaître's 125th birthday as an opportunity to honor his scientific work with a symposium organized jointly with the SCNAT. Lemaître, a Belgian physicist and astronomer made lasting contributions to relativistic cosmology and suggested that the Universe goes back to a primeval atom – now called the Big Bang. The event took place in the Kuppelsaal in the main building of the University of Bern and attracted a large audience of about 70 people. It was part of a series of colloquia that feature important figures from the history of physics; the previous symposium from this series had focused on Richard Feynman. (SPG Mitteilungen No 60).
Effective communication within and across the various sections of our society is assured by publication of the highly-appreciated bulletin, the “SPG Mitteilungen” (or “Communications de la SSP”, or “SPS Communications”; https://www.sps.ch/artikel/communications), and by deferring regularly up-to-date information and news over the SPS Web portal. At ca. one month’s intervals, the SPS Newsletter complements the SPS communication scheme, allowing to disseminate actual news at the Swiss, European, and global level more promptly.
Whilst SPS is a member organization of the Swiss Academy of Science SCNAT and part of the platform Mathematics, Astronomy and Physics MAP, we also maintain strong links with the Swiss Academy of Engineering Science SATW. The many activities of the Swiss Physical Society, like those summarized above, could only be carried out thanks to the continuous organizational and financial support of SCNAT. The Society made best use of the allocated funds and could close its budget with a positive balance in 2019.
The SPS publishes its Bulletin, the “SPG Mitteilungen”, three times per year, which is the most important SPS publication to disseminate information about on-going activities within the society and to review scientific progress in various areas. Thanks to the initiative of the scientific editor Bernhard Braunecker and to the many contributors within our society, high-class articles are published in the specific rubrics of “Progress in Physics”, “Milestones in Physics”, “Plenary talks”, “Physics Anecdotes”, “Physics and Society”, “Physicists in Industry “as well as “History and Philosophy of Physics”. A paper copy of the Bulletin is distributed to all individual members and associate members. Furthermore, open access to this publication is also granted after a few weeks’ courtesy delay to the entire Swiss and international scientific community via the SPS homepage under https://www.sps.ch/artikel/communications.
The SPS also issues an electronic Newsletter that is edited and issued at high quality by Céline Lichtensteiger (Uni Geneva) at a monthly interval. News items inform about actualities in research, on prize winners, on conferences, symposia and workshops that are of interest to a broad audience among SPS members.
As already summarized above, the most important event organized by the SPS is its annual meeting. The program consisted this year of 9 plenary talks, 1 public lecture, 11 topical sessions and a symposium. 354 contributions had been scheduled, 247 of them talks and 107 posters. The conference gathered nearly 500 participants, the Swiss participation amounted to ~ 73 %, the Austrian one to ~ 21%, the rest came from other countries. At the General Assembly of the Society, the terms of the president, Hans Peter Beck (Uni Bern), the vice-president, Bernhard Braunecker (em. LEICA), and the chair of the Atomic Physics and Quantum Optics session, Philipp Treutlein (Uni Basel), were renewed. No new chair for the section Earth, Atmosphere and Environmental Physics could be found.
Further, and also summarized above, three more events were organized:
A special session, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the periodic table of chemical elements was organized jointly with SCNAT as closing event of the annual meeting, which was opened up for the public.
The SPS took Georges Lemaître's 125th birthday as an opportunity to honor his scientific work with a symposium organized jointly with the SCNAT.
SPS is also fostering its presence at regional events, symposia, and meetings. Special highlights of 2019 were the 3rd International Jost Bürgi Symposium in Lichtensteig (Canton St. Gallen), Bürgi's birthplace, was again held over two days
The SPS has tight links to the European Physical Society (EPS). Former president and president of the SPS prize committee, Minh Quang Tran (em. EPFL), is Member of the Executive Committee of the EPS. In this function, he is in charge of relation with Russian, Spanish and Swiss Member Societies and with the Joint European Solar Physics Division and the Energy Group. The president, Hans Peter Beck (Uni Bern), is the Swiss Delegate at the EPS Council.
To foster communication among physicists within all of Europe, SPS is distributing to its members together with its own bulletin the magazine «europhysicsnews» of the European Physical Society (EPS).
Hans Peter Beck is also liaison officer of SPS and SCNAT to IUPAP. Minh Quang Tran, is chair of the C16 Commission (Plasma Physics. In this function he is also member of the IUPAP Council and Commissions Chairs group and participated last year to two meetings of this body. As Chair of the C16, he was presiding the selection of the Young Scientist Awards YSP in the field of Plasma Physics. With the support of the SCNAT, he was able to attend the International Conference on Physics of Ionized Gas (ICPIG) in Sapporo, http://iupap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IUPAP_dec2019_low.pdf), gave one of the opening talks of the Conference on behalf of IUPAP and also handled the YSP 2019 prize to the winner (http://iupap.org/commissions/c16-plasma-physics/c16-awards).
The SPS has developed links with the SFP, Société Française de Physique, in the aim of exploring synergies and activities crossing borders. The SPS and the SFP signed a contract to establish a joint prize named the Charpak–Ritz prize. This prize is given alternately one year to a French physicist (in odd year) and to a Swiss Physicist (even year). The laureate will be selected from a list of three candidates nominated by one Society and selected by the Prize Committee of the other Society. The applications from SFP were sent to SPS in 2018 and the winner, Benoît Deveaud (em. EPFL, École Polytechnique (France)), was selected in 2019 by the SPS Prize Committee. Benoît Deveaud has received the award at the annual meeting on 27 August 2019 in Zürich. Alain Fontaine (former president of SFP) represented SFP at the ceremony (SPG Mitteilungen No 59 and 58).
SPS maintains strong links with the Austrian Physical Society (ÖPG), which is manifested by the bi-annual organization of joint annual meetings, alternatively taking place either at a Swiss or an Austrian venue. The joint meeting 2019 took place at University of Zürich, Irchel, and the next SPS-ÖPG joint meeting is scheduled 2021 in Innsbruck.
The president, Hans Peter Beck, was invited to the Awards Ceremony and the Awards Dinner during the annual DPG conference that took place in Rostock, Germany. Among awarding young scientists for their works, the German Physical Society awards also the prestigious Stern-Gerlach Prize and the Planck Medal, for honouring experimental and theoretical works, respectively. At the award dinner, useful and interesting discussions took place with presidents of physical societies from neighbouring countries of Germany that all were invited as well.
The SPS is awarding prizes in form of a certificate and a cash sum of CHF 5000.- that are sponsored by Swiss companies who have a strong interest in promoting young talented physicists. The SPS Award committee, presided in 2019 by Minh Quang Tran (em. EPFL, former president), had the great pleasure to select the SPS award winners 2019 from many submitted works of excellent scientific quality. The SPS Prize in General Physics by ABB was awarded to Matteo Fadel (Uni Basel) for fundamental contributions in quantum metrology and non-classical correlations in ultracold atomic ensembles. Eduardo Baldini (now MIT, before at EPFL) was awarded the SPS Prize in Condensed Matter Physics by IBM for his contributions to the nonequilibrium dynamics of collective excitations in strongly interacting and correlated quantum systems. The Applied Physics Prize, by Oerlikon Surface Solutions AG, was awarded to Shadi Fatayer (now IBM, before at ETHZ) for his high precision experiments with zeptoampere resolution using atomic force microscopy. Ileana Cristina Benea-Chelmus (ETHZ) was awarded the SPS Prize by Metas related to metrology for her outstanding work on terahertz quantum optics with ultrashort pulses. The SPS Prize in Computational Physics by Comsol was awarded to Amir H. Ghadimi (EPFL)for his work on elastic strain engineering for ultra-low mechanical dissipation (SPG Mitteilungen No 59).
The poster prize was sponsored by Europhysics Letters (EPL) and consisted of a certificate, a CHF 200.- cash prize and the waiver of one article publication charge at EPL. A total of 61 posters competed at the annual meeting for the award from which the jury selected the works of Sara Celani, Jens Oppliger, and Fabio Scafirimuto as the final winners in a two-step evaluation procedure.
The Swiss Physical Society is supporting young physicists via the Young Physicists Forum (YPF). YPF could foster links across all students’ associations at Swiss universities and is organizing a yearly young physicists forum event. In 2019, the topic chosen was ‘Quantum Information’ and was organized 3-5 May at University of Basel, with participants from all over Switzerland. The chair of the Atomic Physics and Quantum Optics section of SPS (Philipp Treutlein, Uni Basel) had a special role as local host and also gave a lecture to the participants. A full review of the event is available online (https://www.young-physicists.ch/young-physicists-forum-2019).
The SPS was again involved in the Swiss Physic Olympiad, SwissPhO. The two best performing students, Cédric Solenthaler, Kantonsschule am Burggraben, SG, and Hiro Farré, Institut Le Rosey,VD, have been rewarded with the "SPG Nachwuchsförderpreis" / "Prix de la Relève de la SSP", given with the support of the Academy SCNAT.
Also the International Physics Tournament, IPT, is among those activities promoting young talents that is pushed and supported by SPS. Six 3rd-year students from EPFL,Nicholas Greensmith (captain), Maxime Scheder, Ivan Rojkov, Ruslan Mushkaev, and Vincent Masson. They were representing Switzerland in the final of the IPT 2019, http://2019.iptnet.info/, competing against teams from fifteen countries, that took place 21-26 April, at EPFL, Lausanne. About 150 students forming19 teams from Europe, Russia, China, India, Australia and South America competed and the French team from Ecole Polytechnique Paris could decide the tournament for them. The Swiss team ranked respectably 5th.
The winners of SwissPhO, EuPhO, IYPT, IYNT, IPT and SJF were invited to the SPS annual meeting at EPFL, where they were mentioned in the award session. They were further given a tour through the laboratories at the physics institute of the University of Zürich – an event that will stay in their memory. SPS supports SwissPhO and ITP with the help of SCNAT.
“Physik im Advent”, http://www.physik-im-advent.de, is an online physics Advent calendar, presenting 24 small, simple experiments and physics riddles to young pupils and anyone interested during advent period every December. The SPS is promoting and sponsoring Physik im Advent in Switzerland and is offering special prices for participants from Swiss schools. Such prizes include visits to CERN and to the Technorama Winterthur, as well as book prizes and physics gadgets to puzzle the mind.
The host server on which the SPS websites is running is an older operating system version that soon no longer can be maintained and will from then on cause potential security hazards. The SPS websites, in turn depend on the now outdating operating system. SPS has charged an external company to update its infrastructure (blind studios), with which modernizations will be implemented.
The Swiss Physical Society unites people with deep knowledge and understanding in physics research and development in all branches in industry, at schools, in universities, and research laboratories, who are at the forefront of new developments, that often lead to new tools and products interesting for industry, SMEs and potentially leading to new start-up companies.
Pre-recognition of emerging technologies and contributions to the SATW Technology Outreach Report are areas of close collaboration with SATW. The actual TOR 2019 was also presented by the SPS-board to the exhibitors from industry during the annual SPS-meeting in Zurich. Several SPS board members are currently involved in the preparation of TOR2021 by delivering input about Quantum technology, Quantum computing and Cyberphysical systems Given the complexity of the matter and the sometimes early phase in view of developing market-ready products, pre-recognition is indeed crucial for Switzerland.
Ethics is at the heart of all human endeavor, and there is no exception for physics and the Swiss Physical Society. SPS is participating in the discussions on ethics in an initiative by the European Physical Society on the “Grand Challenges in Physics for Society in the Horizon 2050”
An open, transparent dialogue with society is a core value of scientific research, and is one of the fundamental mission statements of SPS.
In addition of organizing lectures, seminars, and congress events that are open to the public, and in addition to conduct strong liaisons with schools and teachers in the form of the Physics Olympiad, the Swiss and International Young Physics Tournament, and an initiative for establishing a Physics Teacher education support network started early in 2019 (with support of SCNAT), we have launched in project supported by SCNAT to study the impact physics to the Swiss Society.