DOFFI Conference 2015

Posted on 14/06/201522/07/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Budapest YM Section took part in organizing a Conference to Hungarian PHD students.
The DOFFI Conference gave Physics PhD students from Hungary a chance to present their research and in return, gain an insight about the work being carried out by fellow students. Through a relaxed and friendly environment, it also gave attendees a chance to network with academics and students to create and strengthen professional relationships.
The threeday event (11-14 June 2015) was split into sessions which were chaired by top Hungarian academics in the field. Student presenters of the sessions had the opportunity to receive feedback from an assigned discussant and the audience. The sessions were organized as the following:
A presenter gave a presentation of their own paper (20 minutes).
A discussant gave a short critical analysis of the presenter’s work (5 minutes). A session led by a session leader followed (10 Minutes).
All of the audience was given the opportunity to present their work in a poster. This took place during the whole of the conference.
The PHD students also participated in daily plenary lectures with current research topics (for example gravity waves or the HiggsBoson).
Several physicist employing companies presented themselves to offer different jobs. We organised a forum discussions on issues affecting the physicist community.
We hope that the participant learned a lot, and got to know each other.

Webpage with abstracts, pictures and program:
http://doffi.elte.hu/

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XV Workshop for young researchers in the field of statistical physics and condensed matter theory

Posted on 09/06/201510/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The 15th Workshop and Award for young researchers in the field of statistical physics and condensed matter theory supported by EPS Young Minds project was held in Lviv at the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics on June 4–5, 2015. Since this year is announced as the International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies, the event was dedicated to the 115th anniversary of Olexander Smakula (1900–1983), a famous Ukrainian physicist who is known for the invention of anti-reflective lens coatings based on optical interference.

Five invited lectures were given during the Workshop. In particular, the well-known Ukrainian physicist who studies the optical problems, Leonid Yatsenko presented his overview devoted to the application of light properties to the manipulation of small particles. A special talk about personal and scientific life of Olexander Smakula was given by Svitlana Apunevych. Three other speakers also presented enthusiastic lectures on other directions of modern statistical physics.

Young researchers in statistical physics and condensed matter theory had an opportunity to present their own results during the Workshop. Two of them – Khrystyna Haydukivska and Andrij Kuzmak – were awarded for the best presentations by Special Individual Awards. Four other young participants – Vasyl’ Vasyuta, Iryna Bzovska, Maryana Krasnytska and Kyrylo Snizhko – were distinguished by the Competition Committee as the most promising ones. In general, 19 young researchers not only from Lviv, but from Odesa, Dnipropetrovs’k, Kyiv – took part in the event.

Besides the official part, many cultural activities were organized, including city sightseeing excursion, evening beer-party and picnic. As usual, the Workshop gave a great chance to young and their more experienced colleagues to get in touch, to discuss interesting topics and to enrich scientific connections in friendly atmosphere.

Iryna Zahladko, the president of ICMP Young Minds Section in Lviv, gave a special presentation to familiarize the audience with the section’s activities and the general scope of EPS Young Minds project.

The photos related to the event can be found on the group of our section on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.777221795727664&type=1

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Bilateral section meeting with Glasgow University student chapter

Posted on 07/06/201520/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

On July 6th 2015, SCOPE (the Strathclyde Student Community for Optics & Photonics Engineering) came together with an OSA Student Chapter from Glasgow University, newly founded this year, for a first interchapter meeting and social night.
The event was hosted in the physics common room at Glasgow University. Food and drink was provided jointly by the Glasgow University Chapter as well as SCOPE ranging from pizza and beer to cake and juices. In total a number of about 25 people attended the evening with around 10 students joining us from Strathclyde University. Although many of these were full SCOPE members already, this was still a very good opportunity for recruitment for both the Glasgow University chapter, whose first event it was, and us to engage those students that had not joined our societies yet.
After dinner, the evening continued with a short, but cleverly designed quiz on light-related questions from physics, music and other categories, organized by the Glasgow University Chapter, as well as some socializing allowing the members of both chapters to get to know each other and talk about their respective research activities. For us, as the committee, it also provided an opportunity to exchange experiences with our chapters so far and discuss ideas for future events and potential future collaborations.
Overall, we received positive feedback from the people attending and have planned to repeat such a bilateral meeting with the Glasgow University OSA Chapter in due time. The EPS funding we received was used to provide subway travel for our members to the venue as well as our share of food and drink for the evening.
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Specialized talk

Posted on 26/05/201510/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

This year in May the Konstanz jDPG-YM Section organized a specialized talk where we invited Prof. Frank Schweitzer, who holds the chair for “Systems Design” at the ETH Zürich. The goal was to offer an insight into a research area which is not present at our faculty.

Prof. Frank Schweitzer is leading an interdisciplinary research team in Zürich, which consists of researchers with different backgrounds from e.g. physics, mathematics, computer science, economics and social science. The research of his group is on a scientific description and modeling of networks, their structure and dynamics. He himself studied physics which made him a perfect fit for our event.

The title of his talk was “Adaption, stability and control – an application to complex social networks” and treated different topics on which he is conducting research on. He gave an insight into how to model complex networks and their dynamics, showed to us how the intrinsic dynamics form the network’s shape and what characterizes a stable network. Some of these points were picturized by the example of the network “Friendster”, which used to be one of the biggest online social networks, and whose collapse can be simulated by Prof. Frank Schweitzer’s model.

Our guest was especially interested in the students’ questions and research. During the day, many fruitful discussions with students took place and Prof. Frank Schweitzer showed a great interest in answering all the questions and giving an insight into his research. After the talk, a little group of 8 students went for dinner with him, where even more discussions on topics other than his research took place, e.g. he gave advices and his opinion on career topics and research in general.

The talk was integrated into the weekly physics colloquium. This was an excellent framework for reaching professors, post-docs and Ph.D.-candidates who more or less regularly visit the colloquium but also to motivate bachelor- and master-students to participate on the colloquium and get insight on research topics outside the University of Konstanz. Normally students feel a little bit afraid to participate on the colloquium because they worry not to understand the talk. The students’ feedback was very positive so we hope that they will participate on other specialized talks in the framework of the physics colloquium or other events.

The talk was visited by more people than expected. The feedback also from the professors was very positive, hence we see a demand for a proceeding.

Lviv Days of Light

Posted on 17/05/201504/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

ICTP Young Minds section together with Ivan Franko National University of Lviv held the “Lviv Days of Light” in May 16-17, 2015. The event consisted of three parts: lecturing part, experimental part and entertaining part. The role of light in art, the nature of light and the application of optics in everyday life were discussed during the presentations. Interesting light phenomena, namely: interference, diffraction, polarization, luminescence etc. – were demonstrated later. Finally, everybody had an opportunity to draw a picture using luminous paints and to observe the beautiful effect afterwards under the UV light.

The program of the activities was the following:
16 May:

Popular scientific talk about the role of light in art, given by Victoria Boyarko-Dolzhenko from the Lviv Academy of Art;
Everybody (children of all ages!) had an opportunity to draw a picture using the luminous paints;

17 May:

Popular lecture about the role of light and its different sources was provided by Vitaly Vistovskyy from the Department of Experimental Physics (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv);
Fascinating optical experiments demonstrating the physical properties of light were provided by Igor Pashuk and Andrij Zhyshkovych from the Department of Experimental Physics (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv);
Exhibition of luminous drawings including a number of paintings created by lviv artist Oksana Romanova.

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The power of physics

Posted on 17/05/201510/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Physics League, Valladolid YM Section, organized an outreach activity in several museums: the Science Science Museum of Valladolid, the Barcial de la Loma (Valladolid) and Íscar (Valladolid). The aim of this activity is to demystify some of the most common beliefs of pseudo-science. We explain some ‘paranormal’ tricks or “superpowers” that are easily explained with physical laws.

The experiments carried out in this show are:

Levitation: We have constructed the same levitating system with steel rods used by ‘yoguis’ in India for levitating above the ground. We explain the equilibrium forces and center of mass.
Lenz tube: gravity is evaded when a magnet is dropped through a copper tube. The perturbation of the magnetic field induces currents, with the effect that the magnet falls slower.
Creating electricity: a fluorescent is turned on without electrical connections by a hidden plasma sphere.
The way that electric field induces potential difference in the electrons into the fluorescent is explained.
Bending spoons: The superpower of bending metal by just touching it is demystified. A gallium spoon looks like a normal kitchen spoon but it melts at 28 ºC being easily bent in our hands.
Burning hands: a mixture of water, soap and hairspray allows us to burn our hands without damage due to the Leidenfrost effect.
Fire control: A Rubens’ tube shows the modulation of fire caused by “supernatural beings”, which is
explained by acoustic standing waves in the tube.
Telekinesis: at a certain distance, a pile of glasses is destroyed and candles are put out. This superpower lies on an air vortex hidden in the backstage.
Duel of strength: the attendance is challenged to prove their strength against members of Physics League. Because of the knowledge of center of mass, our team always wins…
Walking through broken glass: We perform the trick of walking through broken glass. This trick is done in
some societies claiming their powerful minds. We show that is just physics at work!
Bed of nails: the control of pain shown by fakirs lying over a bed of nails is also demystified. The relationship between pressure and the surface where it is applied is the basis to understand this “superpower”. We also break a concrete block over a Physics League member lying on this bed.
Ghost apparitions: the scariest moment of the show arrives when a mystery girl suddenly appears!
Thankfully, Ghostbusters go to our rescue, and show us that the apparition is a “Pepper’s Ghost” effect.

The attendance is invited to prove all the experiments.

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Light Research Seminar Day

Posted on 08/05/201504/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Budapest YM Section organized a special seminar to presented current Hungarian light based researches. Recognized scientists from the research industry performed lectures on a variety of topics. The target audience consisted of two parts: pre and postgraduate students who would like to find a new research areas and young scientists who would like to get to know each other’s works. The presented wide scale of topics on light based science and technology have an important part in research, ranging from optics to astronomy or biological physics.

Three presenters from different institutions presented their activities: Fáth Gábor from Morgan Stanley, Rácz Ervin from ELIALPS and Patay Gergely from Mediso Medical Imaging Systems.
We asked a lecturer specially to introduce the largest current scientific research project in Hungary, the ELI Attosecond Light Pulse Source (ELIALPS) of Szeged. The seminar room was at the ELTE Lagymanyos Campus. The lecturers made 30 minutes long presentations on their research subjects and after the participants asked questions from the lecturer and discussed ideas. We planned to organize a whole day long interesting and high quality seminar on light, but it turned out the timing was unfortunately not too good. Because of the end of the semester and the exam period, we had a little less participants then expected. However, those who were present (participants and lecturers alike) had a very positive experience, one our participants has already successfully applied for a job he heard from one of the presenters, he started to work in that job in the private sector.
We learned from this event that in the future we should look for an alternative date for the seminar, and we should focus more on career opportunities than on thematic research area presentations.

Passione Fisica

Posted on 03/05/201507/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

This year Young Minds Naples Section has supported the event “Passione Fisica” , 3rd May 2015, at “Città della Scienza”, an interactive science museum in Naples. “Passione Fisica” is a day dedicated to popularization of science, in particular through Physics experiments. The event has seen the collaboration of Physics’ students, researchers and professors of University of Napoli “Federico II” Physics Department, researchers of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples and high school students. The event was born two years ago as a way to gather funds for the reconstruction of the science museum, which was destroyed by arson. Besides this aspect and, of course, spreading science culture and scientific knowledge, the aim of the event is to realize simple yet curious experiments with everyday materials in order to explain the physical principles beneath them. The event is designed both for adults and children with an interest in science. These experiments are reproducible at home and, most of all, fully interactive. Indeed both adults and children are engaged in discussions and attempts to understand the presented phenomena. This year, our intention has been to expand the range of experiments and physics fields. Creation of a non-Newtonian fluid using water mixed with potato flour in an inflatable pool: this experiment is particularly suitable for children because they can see a completely different behavior of matter, far from what they see in everyday life and, most of all, they can reproduce their own non-Newtonian fluid at home. Generation of plasmas through Microwave oven using simply a candle and a beaker on top of it: the intense electromagnetic field causes a ionization of the air subject to combustion which give rise to a blob of plasma. Measurement of the speed of light using a Microwave oven and a chocolate bar: without rotating the chocolate bar, the intense electromagnetic field melt the chocolate where the field is more intense; measuring the distance between this points and using the standard frequency of the microwave, one can give a rough estimate of the speed of light. Waveguide using a green laser and water: water flowing from a bottle can be used as a waveguide for laser light; if water is twisted using acoustic wave, the effect is even more astonishing.

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Lectures on light & light technologies

Posted on 01/05/201509/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Lithuania can be proud of advancements in lasers, optics and photonics and the interest is wide-spread in society. However there is a lack of high quality seminars, lectures which are open and known for the society. Thus, the Vilnius YM Section offered a cycle of seminars together with solutions of improving the spreading of information and the availability to general audience.

The lectures took place during the international conference for students of physics and natural sciences Open Readings 2015 which is accessible for everyone and is already well-known to students of Vilnius University. However, we thought that reaching full audience is not enough, while there are thousands of people in the internet who would love to see this kind of lectures as well. In total we managed to have 6 lectures starting from physics of the everyday life the lectures covered a variety of topics: nano-structuring, spectroscopy, light emitting diodes, lasers and optical stimulation of neurons and the essence of astrophysics – the black holes. Usually in this international conference topics are not always connected with optics or light sciences, but as this year is the International Year of Light it was a great opportunity to design everything in order to honor the celebration.

Most of the lectures on light and light technologies can be accessed online on the Open Readings web:
• “Move into Nano-World by Femtosecond Lasers” by Wolfgang Kautek
• “Ultrafast processes explored by spectroscopy” by Mikas Vengris
• “From Nanopowder Science to Next Generation Lasers” by Gregory J. Quarles
• “Optical Stimulation of Neurons” by Paul R. Stoddart
• “Supermassive Black Holes and Their Galaxies” by Kastytis Zubovas

This way the number of potential attendees was assured to be as high as possible. We believe that people who attended or watched the lectures improved their theoretical knowledge and got the best look at applications. Lectures increased the awareness of light technologies in general and the importance of International Year of Light was spread as widely as it could be!

Lectures and workshops on scientific publishing

Posted on 01/05/201509/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Most of the section members or students of Faculty of Physics, Vilnius University in general are in the earliest stages of their scientific careers, thus, only a few of us are familiar with scientific publishing, taking into account both the concepts (f.e. scientific paper composition and process of peer reviewing) and the technical part (manuscript preparation, reference managemen). During the activity, lectures of invited speakers (“How to publish your manuscript” by Peter E. Andersen and “How to publish your manuscript: Editorial point of view” by Rachel Won) and chapter members (“Introduction to scientific publishing using LaTeX” by Vytautas Butkus) were held.

The lectures of the invited speakers took place during the “Open readings 2015” conference and attracted around 200 participants, including members of the section and faculty staff. The lecture by Vytautas Butkus was attended by ~20 people, excluding the chapter members. There also were several workshops, where the chapter members and the faculty students were introduced to LaTeX/LyX scientific text preparation tools. Some of the attendees were involved into development of lecture notes of the “Mathematical Physics” subject. The lecture notes were printed and distributed and the selected books about scientific publishing were bought. Workshops were continuously attended by 3-to-5 chapter members and ~5 students. The participants were introduced to many different tips and tricks in scientific publishing. In the lecture and workshops, led by the chapter members, participants were introduced to the history and specificity of the scientific publishing (journals, use of language, publishing and peer review process, etc.) as well as to LaTeX/LyX tools for scientific documents preparation.

This event provided a great understanding of the publishing process, essential skills and practical applications. OSA and SPIE Student Chapters of Vilnius University also played a huge role in the funding of this activity. The funding was used to reimburse the travel expenses (flight tickets, airport transfer and local transport cost and the accommodation cost) of our main lecturer – the editor of Nature Photonics, Rachel Won. We have also bought several books on scientific writing: “Trees, maps and theorems” by Jean-luc Doumont, “The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing” by Richard Dawkins and “The Craft of Scientific Writing” by Michael Alley. They are held in our special Students Scientific Association library and are open for every young mind.

Look here the video of Rachel Won talk “How to Publish Your Manuscript”!

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