Annual Meeting 2007

The annual meeting 2007 of the SPS was held on February 20th and 21st at the University of Zürich. About 400 participants, 168 talks and 80 posters helped to make it a remarkable event. Besides the traditional sessions, this year's symposia covered the topics "Computational Physics", "Physics in Industry and Economy", "Physics in Medicine and Biology" and "Challenges of Future Energies".

Many thanks go also to the people ‘behind the scene’, like technician, caterer, janitor and everyone contributing to a smoothly working meeting.

The starting point was a plenary session on Tuesday morning. Four excellent talks by leaders in their respective fields about magnetic resonance imaging (K. P. Prüssmann), superheavy elements (H. W. Gäggeler), a more sustainable energysystem (A. Wokaun) and computational physics (M. Parinello) allowed to catch a glimpse of the enormous breadth of physics research and involvement in Switzerland.

Three young scientists won the SPS prizes 2007 and received the awards later on the first day. Support and promotion of the young talents is an important task and a constant worry, but, luckily, the impressive quality of their work allowed to stop worrying for the rest of the day.

Another highlight was the Tuesday evening excursion to the archives of the ETH library. About 100 participants followed the invitation of the organizers and had the opportunity to see various physics related rare books, manu­scripts and photographs which are usually not displayed. The subsequent dinner in the "Doz­entenfoyer" of the old ETH building had added value in form of live music and an interesting view onto Zürich.

The second day of the meeting was mainly devoted to parallel sessions and the poster session. At the end of the day, most people we could talk to were quite satisfied and would come again. We certainly hope they will. The ones which might have left unsatisfied or the ones which did not come at all can hope­fully be convinced that the meeting can play an important role for a lively physics community in Switzerland. Criticism is necessary and highly welcome, please give us your feedback and suggestions about what we should improve for the future: sps@unibas.ch


Music video of the band "Captain Frank"