44th Congress of the Polish Physical Society
- Date: September 10-15, 2017
- Venue: Wrocław University of Science and Technology
The congress is the oldest Polish physics conference, with its history reaching back to the Inaugural Meeting held in Warsaw in 1920. It is organised biannually, rotating between important physics research centres in Poland. That year, it was held under the honorary patronage of the Ministry of Science and the City Mayor.
The event attracted about 600 regular participants (mostly professional researchers and graduate students concerned with all branches of physics, but also younger students, teachers, and hobbyists) and 1,000 participants of open satellite events (mostly high school students and children).
The lectures selected for the Congress showcased the most important recent research advances in physics, with emphasis on achievements that involved Polish contributions. The program also included a dozen specialised parallel afternoon sessions. One of them was dedicated to optics, which is a branch of physics particularly well developed at our Department of Optics and Photonics.
Several special guests chosen from among the most eminent physicists in the world delivered plenary lectures. The group included three Nobel laureates: Shuji Nakamura, Theodor Hänsch, and Gerard ‘t Hooft, two world-leading researchers in the field of quantum information: Charles Bennett and Anton Zeilinger, a Templeton Prize winner: Michal Heller, the famous Polish astrophysicist Andrzej Udalski, two most cited active Polish physicists: Maciej Lewenstein (quantum optics) and Witold Nazarewicz, and 6 recipients of the most prestigious Polish Science Award.
The satellite events included an open popular session addressed mostly to secondary school students, featuring lectures by two great speakers: Anton Zeilinger and Łukasz Turski, and another session of experiments and demonstrations for children. There were also discussion panels of various kinds and a poster session.
The social programme comprised a choice of several city tours, a special banquet, and a classical music concert in the city’s magnificent National Forum of Music.
More information is available in Polish on the website of the congress.
Academia Europaea was one of the sponsors of the event.
