Some of South Africa’s and the Worlds leading Physics will gather at the University of Johannesburg’s Auckland Park Kingsway Campus for the Annual Institute of Physics Conference, which will be opened by The Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor at 18h00 on Monday, 7 July 2014.Hosted by the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Science the four-day conference will attract more than 490 physicists from around the country along with several guest speakers from the Americas, Europe and Asia.

“The conference happens at a time when there are several major developments generating excitement not only in the physics community but in broader society as well. A lot of the scientific discussions at the conference are expected to focus on these developments as well as the potential of new discoveries,” says Professor Hartmut Winkler of the Faculty of Science at the University of Johannesburg.

Some conference highlights:

On Wednesday, 09 July at 16:30 – Local innovation will come under the spotlight during Prof Andrew Forbes of the CSIR’s presentation. His team was featured in the news last year for their advances in laser physics.    

On Thursday, 10 July at 12:30 – An hour plenary lecture on the latest progress with the construction of the Square Kilometer Array. This session will be presented by Prof Justin Jonas (SKA Associate Director: Science and Engineering). Much discussion at the conference is also expected to focus on the possible selection of Namibia as host for the Cherenkov Telescope Array, another international project to establish a massive astrophysical gamma ray facility.

On Friday, 11 July at 09:00 – Prof Emmanuel Tsesmelis of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research and Oxford University, will share with the delegates the dramatic discoveries made at CERN in recent years, including the long anticipated finding of Higgs Boson, which resulted in the awarding of the Physics Nobel Prize to the discovery team (which included South African participation).

Other plenary speakers include theoretical physicist Prof Toshimi Suda of Tohoku University, Japan; nanoscientist  Prof Eric Fullerton of San Diego University, USA; photovoltaics expert Prof Vladimar Djakanov, based in Germany; photonics specialist Prof Miles Padgett of Glasgow University; astrophysicist Megan Donahue of Michigan University, USA; Prof Cedic Linder, Uppsala, Sweden, and Prof Marcia Barosa, Brasil, will challenge the delegates with discussions around Physics education and Women in Physics respectively.