Physics & Development 2005
12 July 2005
As part of the celebration of the World Year of Physics - the 100th anniversary of Einstein's "miraculous year", in which he published three of his most famous papers - the World Conference on Physics and Sustainable Development takes place in Durban from 31 October to 2 November.
The conference will serve as the first global forum to focus the physics community on development goals and to create new mechanisms of cooperation toward their achievement.
Participants from developed and developing nations will gather to examine the contributions that physics has made to society in the past in order to formulate and sharpen action-oriented plans for the contributions that it can and should make in future.
The conference will follow up on the 1999 Unesco-ICSU World Conference on Science, which sought to strengthen the ties between science and society, as well as the broader UN World Summit on Sustainable Development that took place in
Johannesburg in 2002.
This conference will be co-sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the Abdus Salam International Centre for Physics, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), and the South African Institute of Physics.
It will be held in conjunction with the 2005 General Assembly of the IUPAP, and is expected to attract 400 to 500 participants from across the globe.
Four themes have been chosen for the conference: physics and economic development; physics and health; energy and the environment; and physics education.
An international advisory committee comprised of Nobel Laureates and other international science leaders is working with a planning committee to prepare the conference programme.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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