Plattform Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik
In 2021, the activities of the Platform MAP were still affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but much less than in 2020. September offered the opportunity to finally held the postponed Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Symposium and the two ceremonies of the Schläfli Prizes 2020 (Astronomy) and 2021 (Mathematics). A single MAP Plenum meeting was held in hybrid format in early October, but the Round Table International did not resume its biannual meetings.
The main highlight was the publication of three roadmaps on large research infrastructures for 2025—2028. They were written by the communities in particle physics, as well as photon and neutron sciences on a mandate by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). A preview version of each roadmap was released on 6 January and an event was organised on 20 January to present them to representatives of federal institutions and cantonal universities.
The main activity of the Platform MAP in 2021 was the Portrait Series of Women in Science presenting every month a female scientist in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, or physics both with an article and a video.
Friedrich K. Thielemann, former MAP President, has been elected as honorary member of the Swiss Physical Society (SPS). He ended his mandate in the MAP Presidium at the end of 2021, as well as Ruth Durrer and Francesco Pepe.
Anina Steinlin started on 16 August as new scientific collaborator (50%) in the Platform MAP enabling Marc Türler to reduce his workload to 40% as Head of the Platform to become also Head of the Science Division (40%) as of September 1st.
Three Roadmaps for research infrastructures 2025–2028 were published by 31st March in the series Swiss Academies Reports. They have been written by the Swiss communities in particle physics (CHIPP), photon science (SSPh) and neutron science (SNSS) on a mandate by SERI. The Astronomy Roadmap could not be finished on time and will be published only next year.
The Platform MAP supports its member organisation for their own publications. These are the international journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (SSAA) and “Elemente der Mathematik” (SMS), plus three communication tools of member societies: the SPS Communications, SSS-Bulletin, and the SSCr Newsletter.
The postponed Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Symposium was successfully held at the ETHZ (Hönggerberg) on Saturday, 18 September. It was organised jointly by the Platform MAP, the SPS, and the Physikalische Gesellshaft Zürich (PGZ) and was attended by about 50 people. It marked the 175th birthday of W.C. Röntgen (1845—1923) and the 125th anniversary of his discovery of X-rays. The Euler Committee closure event was postponed by a second year due to the pandemic situation.
The Platform MAP does not organise its own school, but supports the schools of its member organisations, such as the Saas-Fee Course in astronomy, the CHIPP PhD Winter School alternating with the Zuoz summer school, or the Zurich School of Crystallography. Such events could more or less be resumed in 2021 by holding the meetings virtually or in hybrid format.
The usual meetings of the Round Table "Swiss Representation in International Organisations and Research Infrastructures" (RoTIORI) were not resumed in 2021 in part due to the on-going pandemic and also due to a lack of coordination needs following the publication of the community roadmaps for research infrastructures. The next meeting is foreseen for January 2022.
The Royal Society approached the Swiss Academies to organise a UK-Swiss Bilateral International Meeting (BIM). SCNAT took this up in the wake of the Roadmap project to discuss possible collaborations on large international research infrastructures. Despite strong involvement by H.R. Ott and M. Türler, misunderstandings, different organisational structures and scientific interests in Switzerland and UK led to the cancellation of the event foreseen to take place virtually in early October 2021.
The issue of the renaming of the Agassiz Promontory on the moon due to the racist views of the naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is now officially closed for SCNAT with the detailed letter of 14 June 2021 from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) explaining the reasons why they do not wish to rename the promontory.
The ceremony of the awarding to Oliver Müller of the Prix Schläfli 2020 in Astronomy could finally take place on 24 September 2021 at the Observatory of Geneva. The Prix Schläfli 2021 in Mathematics was awarded to Gabriel Dill (Uni Basel) for his outstanding thesis on Diophantine geometry at a ceremony on 15 September 2021. The Prix Schläfli 2022 will be in Physics.
The promotion of young women to start and pursue an academic career was addressed this year with a series of portraits of women in science in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Every month, an article by the scientific journalist Benedikt Vogel and an accompanying video with subtitles were put on-line in three languages. It shows how women scientists in these formerly male fields have successfully established themselves in Switzerland and could often reconcile her work with family life.
The Platform MAP supports many projects by member societies for the promotion of young scientists. A dedicated webpage reports PhD prizes, events and other news on the topic, including press releases on Science Olympiads.
In 2021, we had again one MAP Plenum meeting with the representatives of the MAP member organisations. It was held in hybrid format in October 2021 with a scientific talk given by Prof. Sarah Kenderdine (EPFL) on “Computational Museology: interfaces to cultural (and scientific) knowledge”.
The MAP Presidium held three meetings in 2021. The two first only per videoconference in May and September and the last one in November in hybrid format. Besides the usual activities and decisions, the Presidium gave its input to the SCNAT strategic action fields and objectives 2022—2028. It also nominated two people for the Balzan Prize 2021 in the field of “Gravitation: physical and astrophysical aspects”, and one of them, namely Thibault Damour, received this prestigious international award.
The SCNAT Executive Board approved on 24 June 2021 the dissolution of the Euler Committee and the transfer of remaining funds and rights to the Bernoulli-Euler-Gesellschaft (BEG). This decision needs to be formalised by a future agreement also clarifying the role of SCNAT in the organisation of the Euler 2022 celebration event.
The MAP Presidium reacted on the publication by Swiss Academies (a+) of the Code of Conduct for Scientific Integrity. In a letter addressed to Claudia Appenzeller (Secretary General of a+), it regrets that the SCNAT Presidia and more generally the scientific community was not better informed and consulted in the elaboration of this document prepared by a+, jointly with SNSF, swissuniversities, and Innosuisse. It also regrets the absence of distinction on the severity of the various infractions, which include auto-plagiarism and not complying to Open Data policies.
The Platform MAP is, since 2019, a national node for Switzerland of UNESCO’s International Day of Light (IDL) celebrated every year on May 16th. In 2021, IDL was still affected by the pandemic, but launched a Trust Science pledge as a worldwide campaign to promote support for the scientific process and to acknowledge the many benefits of science to society.
The website of the Platform MAP and the File “Physics and Astronomy” under “SCNAT knowledge” announces most of the events and activities of the Platform and of its member organisations. Two additional member societies, namely the Swiss Society of Crystallography (SSCr) and the Swiss Society for Logic and Philosophy of Science (SSLPS), migrated in 2021 their website to the SCNAT portal.
F.K. Thielemann successfully nominated in October the “Stachelschützenhaus” in Basel as a new EPS Historic Site of the European Physical Society (EPS). A ceremony should take place in 2022.
The development of a new SCNAT thematic portal on Astronomy made significant progress in 2021. Public release is expected next year.