Physicists' Meeting 2023
“Fyskermøtet” welcomes physicists working in academia, research, secondary education and industry to Bergen August 9-11, 2023.
Main content
General
“Fyskermøtet” welcomes physicists working in academia, research, secondary education and industry to Bergen August 9-11, 2023.
The program features plenary talks on the latest development in physics in Norway, as well as parallel sessions organized by the eight topical subgroups:
All talks will be given in English.
The program includes the traditional biannual gathering (årsmøtene) and award ceremonies:
We will organize a social program during the meeting with coffee breaks and lunch, as well as a play, exploration at VilVite, and a dinner banquet.
Welcome!
More about the Norwegian Physical Society
Invited Talks
Torkild Jemterud
Programleder, Abels Tårn (NRK)
Hva jeg lærte av Penrose og Zeilinger
Å være forskningsjournalist er en usedvanlig privilegert posisjon: man får tilgang til noen av de fremste og mest interessante hjernene i verden, og siden man ikke har noen faglig posisjon å forsvare, kan man stort sett spørre om hva man vil. Og etterpå kan man la tankene vandre fritt og til om snakke høyt om det.
Jeg vil fortelle om mine møter med Nobelprisvinnerne Roger Penrose og Anton Zeilinger, to markante skikkelser fra hver sin leir: relativitetsteorien og kvantefysikken. På bakgrunn av disse samtalene akter jeg å spekulere vilt om fysikkens framtid. Fra en legmanns ståsted.
Emma Curtis-Lake
STFC Webb Fellow, Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire
Exploring the early universe with James Webb Space Telescope: the importance of spectroscopy
The first weeks of science operations of JWST brought tens of candidates in the early Universe, with many of them being further away than what Hubble could see. However, it’s only with spectroscopy that we can verify these candidates and truly start to characterise galaxy evolution at the earliest times. Thanks to the incredibly sensitive NIRSpec instrument, we are now verifying, or rejecting the current candidates, finding black holes, and learning about the build-up of elements in the early Universe. I will summarise the first year of results, focusing on spectroscopy, including those from the JADES survey (JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey) that provided the first spectroscopic confirmation of galaxies further away than Hubble could see, and at the time of writing still hold the highest redshift spectroscopically confirmed galaxy.
Dhayalan Velauthapillai
Professor of Physics, Western Norway Univ. of Applied Sciences
Energi for alle: Er solenergi løsningen?
Det er flere myter om solenergi teknologier. Kan Solenergi være løsningen for framtidige energi kriser? Professor ved HVL, Dhayalan Velauthapillai leder en internasjonal forskningsgruppe , ‘Advanced Nanomaterials for Clean Energy and Health Applications’ (ANCEHA) og driver med forskning blant annet nanomaterialer for solcelle, hydrogen og energilagrings teknologier. Han vil ta opp mytene og fakta relatert til solenergi og skal presentere forskning ved HVL om framtidige solenergi teknologier.
Magdalena Kersting
Assistant Prof., Dept. of Science Education, Univ. of Copenhagen
Engasjerende fysikk: Bruk av kropp og sanser for økt forståelse
Fysikk er vitenskapen om den fysiske verden, og vi forstår, opplever og studerer naturen gjennom kroppene og sansene våre. Det er derfor spennende å undersøke hvordan bruk av øyne, hender og kropp kan fremme engasjement for fysikk og påvirke evnen til å tenke som en fysiker. I dette foredraget vil vi se nærmere på teorien om kroppslig plassbasert tenkning og hvordan fysikkundervisning kan dra nytte av denne teorien. Kroppslig plassbasert tenkning belyser samspillet mellom sinn, kropp og verden, og det er dette samspillet som bidrar til elevenes utvikling av forståelse for fysikkens begreper. Gjennom undervisningseksempler, historiske casestudier og praktiske råd vil vi få innsikt i hvordan en kroppslig tilnærming til fysikk kan berike undervisningen og fremme elevers læring. Foredraget vil være relevant for fysikklærere og fysikkundervisere på universitetsnivå, samt alle som er interessert i formidling av fysikk.
Camilla Hanquist Stokkevåg
Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Physics & Technology, UiB
Treating cancer with proton radiotherapy
Norway is currently establishing proton therapy centers in Bergen and Oslo, opening towards the end of 2024 and early 2025. Protons enable sparing of more healthy tissues compared to conventional photon-based radiotherapy, and thereby expected to reduce patient side effects following treatment. This will not only be a game changer for patients, but also promote new multidisciplinary research within physics, biology and medicine. In this talk I will include some of our ongoing research within proton therapy, as well as presenting developments and future opportunities in patient care and within research.
Erlend Magnus Viggen
Researcher, Dept. of Circulation and Medical Imaging, NTNU
Setting the story straight about how vibrating surfaces produce sound
Can all vibrating surfaces produce sound in an adjacent fluid? This is a basic question in acoustics. Books and courses teach that the nature of the pressure wave generated by a vibration depends on the ratio between the vibration's speed and the fluid's sound speed: Supersonic vibrations (where the vibration moves faster than the sound speed) radiate sound waves into the fluid, while subsonic vibrations (where the vibration moves slower) generate evanescent pressure waves that do not radiate and cling to the surface. During an applied research project, however, we found results at odds with this prevailing view, indicating that subsonic vibrations can also radiate sound waves. Furthermore, a handful of articles over the last 30 years have also found similar results. While these results challenge the prevailing view of sound radiation, no full fundamental physical explanation of this phenomenon was available. We provide this missing explanation by taking energy conservation fully into account in a quite straightforward radiation model. This model balances the sound wave radiated into the fluid with a necessary attenuation of the guided wave underlying the vibration. While this attenuation is neglected by the majority of explanations in the literature, it is the key to explaining subsonic sound radiation, because attenuated vibrations produce inhomogeneous sound waves that always radiate. We find that subsonic vibrations can radiate sound waves in many situations, depending on the properties of the guided wave and the fluid medium.
Esben Klinkby
Seaborg Technologies – Co-founder & Head of Analysis, PhD
In recent years, the molten salt reactor type (MSR) has seen renewed interest worldwide. Several concepts are under development, sharing the common feature that the fissile material is dissolved in a molten salt exhibiting a very high boiling point. This has the advantage that the fuel can be used not only as fuel but also as coolant, even at atmospheric pressure. When also taking into account fission product retention potentials of the considered salts, this means that the safety case of a MSR is entirely different than for, say, a PWR and potentially the plants can be made cheaper.
In the presentation, the present reactor fleet is briefly discussed, while focus is placed on next generation reactors, particularly on MSRs and the CMSR developed by Seaborg Technologies, a Copenhagen based reactor developer, co-founded by the speaker.
Ole Christen Reistad
Head of Radiation Protection, Agilera Pharma AS, former reactor manager, JEEP II, Kjeller
International Nuclear Power Perspectives – And What About Norway?
Nuclear power generates a significant share of the world's electricity in a time where energy is in high demand, the available options dwindle with the climate crises unfolding. Many countries are at public unease with the burning of fossil fuels, but also with the safety of nuclear power, including the handling of spent fuel and waste. This presentation revisits the relevant technologies and the experiences acquired to date, together with the current international perspectives on the development on nuclear power. The relevance and perspectives for Norway are described, taking the recent proposals to establish a fleet of small and medium sized reactors (SMR) here.
