Micheal Faraday

Biography of Micheal Faraday

Quick Info

Born

22 September 1791

Newington Butts, Surrey (now London) England

Died

25 August 1867

Hampton Court, Middlesex, England

Summary

Micheal Faraday was an English physicist whose discoveries in electricity had an enormous influence on the development of mathematics.

BIOGRAPHY

Micheal Faraday did not directly contribute to mathematics so should not really qualify to have his biography in this archive. However he was such a major figure and his science had such a large impact on the work of those developing mathematical theories that it is proper that he is included. We say more about this below.

      Faraday's father, James Faraday, was a blacksmith who came from Yorkshire in the north of England while his mother Margaret Hastwell, also from the north of England, was the daughter of a farmer. Early in 1791 James and Margaret moved to Newington Butts, which was then a village outside London, where James hoped that work was more plentiful. They already had two children, a boy Robert and a girl, before they moved to Newington Butts and Michael was born only a few months after their move.

       Work was not easy to find and the family moved again, remaining in or around London. By 1795, when Micheal was around five years, the family were living in Jacob's Wells Mews in London. They had rooms over a coachhouse and, by this time, a second daughter had been born. Times were hard particularly since Micheal's father had poor health and was not able to provide much for his family.

      The family were held closely together by a strong religious faith, being members of the Sandemanians, a form of the Protestant Church which had split from the Church of Scotland. The Sandemanians believed in the literal truth of the Bible and tried to recreate the sense of love and community which had characterised the early Christian Church. The religious influence was important for Faraday since the theories he developed later in his life were strongly influenced by a belief in a unity of the world.

    Micheal attended a day school where he learnt to read, write and count. When Faraday was thirteen years old he had to find work to help the family finances and he was employed running errands for George Riebau who had a bookselling business. In 1805, after a year as an errand-boy, Faraday was taken on by Riebau as an apprentice bookbinder. He spent seven years serving his apprenticeship with Riebau. Not only did he bind books but he also read them. Riebau wrote a letter in 1813 in which he described how Faraday spent his days as an apprentice.

     After the regular hours of business, he was chiefly employed in drawing and copying from the Artist's Repository, a work published in numbers which he took in weekly. ... Dr Watts's Improvements of the mind was then read and frequently took in his pocket, when he went an early walk in the morning, visiting some other works of art or searching for some mineral or vegetable curiosity. ... His mind ever engaged, besides attending to bookbinding which he executed in a proper manner.

      His mode of living temperate, seldom drinking any other than pure water, and when done his day's work, would set himself down in the workshop ... If I had any curious book from my customers to bind, with plates, he would copy such as he thought singular or clever ...

     Faraday himself wrote of this time in his life:-

Whilst an apprentice, I loved to read the scientific books which were under my hands ...

    From 1810 Faraday attended lectures at John Tatum's house. He attended lectures on many different topics but he was particularly interested in those on electricity, galvanism and mechanics. At Tatum's house he made two special friends, J Huxtable who was a medical student, and Benjamin Abbott who was a clerk. In 1812 Faraday attended lectures by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution and made careful copies of the notes he had taken. In fact these lectures would become Faraday's passport to a scientific career.

      In 1812, intent on improving his literary skills, he carried out a correspondence with Abbott. He had already tried to leave bookbinding and the route he tried was certainly an ambitious one. He had written to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society , asking how he could become involved in scientific work. Perhaps not surprisingly he had received no reply. When his apprenticeship ended in October 1812, Faraday got a job as a bookbinder but still he attempted to get into science and again he took a somewhat ambitious route for a young man with little formal education. He wrote to Humphry Davy, who had been his hero since he attended his chemistry lectures, sending him copies of the notes he had taken at Davy's lectures. Davy, unlike Banks, replied to Faraday and arranged a meeting. He advised Faraday to keep working as a bookbinder, saying:-

    Science is a harsh mistress, and in a pecuniary point of view but poorly rewarding those who devote themselves to her service.

    Shortly after the interview Davy's assistant had to be sacked for fighting and Davy sent for Faraday and invited him to fill the empty post. In 1813 Faraday took up the position at the Royal Institution.

     In October 1813 Davy set out on a scientific tour of Europe and he took Faraday with him as his assistant and secretary. Faraday met Ampère and other scientists in Paris. They travelled on towards Italy where they spent time in Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples. Heading north again they visited Milan where Faraday met Volta. The trip was an important one for Faraday.

        These eighteen months abroad had taken the place, in Faraday's life, of the years spent at university by other men. He gained a working knowledge of French and Italian; he had added considerably to his scientific attainments, and had met and talked with many of the leading foreign men of science; but, above all, the tour had been what was most valuable to him at that time, a broadening influence.

         On his return to London, Faraday was re-engaged at the Royal Institution as an assistant. His work there was mainly involved with chemical experiments in the laboratory. He also began lecturing on chemistry topics at the Philosophical Society. He published his first paper in 1816 on caustic lime from Tuscany.

      In 1821 Faraday married Sarah Barnard whom he had met when attending the Sandemanian church. Faraday was made Superintendent of the House and Laboratory at the Royal Institution and given additional rooms to make his marriage possible.

     The year 1821 marked another important time in Faraday's researches. He had worked almost entirely on chemistry topics yet one of his interests from his days as a bookbinder had been electricity. In 1820 several scientists in Paris including Arago and Ampère made significant advances in establishing a relation between electricity and magnetism. Davy became interested and this gave Faraday the opportunity to work on the topic. He published On some new electro-magnetical motions, and on the theory of magnetism in the Quarterly Journal of Science in October 1821. Pearce Williams writes:

     It records the first conversion of electrical into mechanical energy. It also contained the first notion of the line of force.

      It is Faraday's work on electricity which has prompted us to add him to this archive. However we must note that Faraday was in no sense a mathematician and almost all his biographers describe him as "mathematically illiterate". He never learnt any mathematics and his contributions to electricity were purely that of an experimentalist. Why then include him in an archive of mathematicians? Well, it was Faraday's work which led to deep mathematical theories of electricity and magnetism. In particular the remarkable mathematical theories on the topic developed by Maxwell would not have been possible without Faraday's discovery of various laws. This is a point which Maxwell himself stressed on a number of occasions.

     In the ten years from 1821 to 1831 Faraday again undertook research on chemistry. His two most important pieces of work on chemistry during that period was liquefying chlorine in 1823 and isolating benzene in 1825. Between these dates, in 1824, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society . This was a difficult time for Faraday since Davy was at this time President of the Royal Society and could not see the man who he still thought of as his assistant as becoming a Fellow. Although Davy opposed his election, he was over-ruled by the other Fellows. Faraday never held the incident against Davy, always holding him in the highest regard.

    Faraday introduced a series of six Christmas lectures for children at the Royal Institution in 1826. In 1831 Faraday returned to his work on electricity and made what is arguably his most important discovery, namely that of electro-magnetic induction. This discovery was the opposite of that which he had made ten years earlier. He showed that a magnet could induce an electrical current in a wire. Thus he was able to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and discover the first dynamo. Again he made lines of force central to his thinking. He published his first paper in what was to become a series on Experimental researches on electricity in 1831. He read the paper before the Royal Society on 24 November of that year.

       In 1832 Faraday began to receive honours for his major contributions to science. In that year he received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. In February 1833 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution. Further honours such as the Royal Medal and the Copley Medal, both from the Royal Society, were to follow. In 1836 he was made a Member of the Senate of the University of London, which was a Crown appointment.

      During this period, beginning in 1833, Faraday made important discoveries in electrochemistry. He went on to work on electrostatics and by 1838 he:-

  ... was in a position to put all the pieces together into a coherent theory of electricity.

     The extremely high workload eventually told on Faraday's health and in 1839 he suffered a nervous breakdown. He did recover his health and by 1845 he began intense research activity again. The work which he undertook at this time was the result of mathematical developments in the subject. Faraday's ideas on lines of force had received a mathematical treatment from William Thomson. He wrote to Faraday on 6 August 1845 telling him of his mathematical predictions that a magnetic field should affect the plane of polarised light. Faraday had attempted to detect this experimentally many years earlier but without success. Now, with the idea reinforced by Thomson , he tried again and on 13 September 1845 he was successful in showing that a strong magnetic field could rotate the plane of polarisation, and moreover that the angle of rotation was proportional to the strength of the magnetic field. Faraday wrote:-

    That which is magnetic in the forces of matter has been affected, and in turn has affected that which is truly magnetic in the force of light.

   He followed his line of experiments which led him to discover diamagnetism.

By the mid 1850s Faraday's mental abilities began to decline. At around the same time Maxwell was building on the foundations Faraday had created developing a mathematical theory which would always have been out of reach for Faraday. However Faraday continued to lecture at the Royal Institution but declined the offer of the Presidency of the Royal Society in 1857.

  He continued to give the children's Christmas lectures. In 1859-60 he gave the Christmas lectures on the various forces of matter. At the following Christmas he gave the children's lectures on the chemical history of the candle. These two final series of lectures by Faraday were published and have become classics. The Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution, begun by Faraday, continue today but now reach a much greater audience since they are televised. 

    The Royal Institution literature states:-

    Faraday's magnetic laboratory, where many of his most important discoveries were made, was restored in 1972 to the form it was known to have had in 1854 . A museum, adjacent to the laboratory, houses a unique collection of original apparatus arranged to illustrate the most important aspects of Faraday's immense contribution to the advancement of science in his fifty years at the Royal Institution.

  Martin gives this indication of Faraday's character:-

   He was by any sense and by any standard a good man; and yet his goodness was not of the kind that make others uncomfortable in his presence. His strong personal sense of duty did not take the gaiety out of his life. ... his virtues were those of action, not of mere abstention ...

The Feynman Technique

How to Understand Physics Better?

       The Feynman Technique is one of the best techniques to understand physics better. It was given by American Physicist, Richard Feynman. Richard Feynman is one of the greatest physicists of all the time. He won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). But what made him truly famous was his teaching. Feynman is regarded as the greatest explainer of physics.

         The Feynman Technique can be traced back to Einstein's quote:

"If you can't explain something, you don't understand it well enough."

      If you reverse this quote, it becomes the Crux of the Feynman Technique.

    "To understand something better, explain it simply."

       The Feynman Technique has four Steps:

Step 1) Write the heading of the topic you want to understand on a piece of paper.

Step 2) Explain it by writing in the simplest way possible. Don't just write what the concept is but also try to explain using illustrations and examples.

Step 3) Teach the concept to someone. This is the most important step. Once you are done writing, try to explain it as if you are teaching to a class. One thing you have to make sure is that you don't use complicated language to explain something.

Step 4) Go back to your weak areas. If there was any part in which you struggled in step 3, this means you haven't understand it well. Go back to that weak part and think how you can explain it better. This is the simple trick to improve Step 3. Instead of explaining to a class, try to explain the concept to a kid because a kid who knows very less will often ask you "Why" on many points. The more number of ways you answer, the deeper you drive in the concept and the better you understand it.

   The Feynman Technique has two benefits:

  Firstly, you get to know what you understand the best.

    Secondly, you discover your weak areas. 

     So instead of working on the whole topic, you just have to work on a specific area.

    Feynman Technique is based on teaching and it has been well established that we remember:

10% of what we read

20% of what we hear

70% of what we discuss

95% of what we teach.

                                ........... Zahoor Sir Physics

Unsolved Mysteries!!!

Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries of the Strange Universe:

      Our world is shaped by all sorts of unseen forces that we don’t fully understand. So let’s take a look at some of the unsolved mysteries that plague the minds of physicists. From dark matter to the multiverse, it’s time to delve into a world in which truth is stranger than fiction.

1) Dark Matter – The Spider’s Web:

     Planets, stars, asteroids, galaxies – the things that we can actually see – make up less than 5% of the total universe. Scientists think another ~25% is a strange substance called dark matter: we can’t see it, we don’t understand it, but we’re pretty sure it’s out there because everything moves to its gravitational tune.

        Scientists believe that dark matter acts like a spider’s web, holding fast-moving galaxies together. And there’s so much of this stuff that it bends the appearance of space, so that when astronomers observe distant galaxies, they often appear distorted.

       We have plenty of evidence that dark matter exists, but as for what it is, that remains a mystery. Some think dark matter is composed of an undiscovered particle or particles, others believe it’s an undiscovered property of gravity. Whatever the truth, dark matter is a real puzzle, and it’s proved hugely tricky to pin down.

2) Dark Energy – The Poltergeist:

        So if dark matter makes up 25% of the universe and normal matter makes up 5%, what about the other 70%?

        We think that the remainder is entirely ‘dark energy’, powerful enough to tear the entire universe asunder. Whilst dark matter appears to mesh galaxies together, dark energy seems to want to push everything apart.

     We all know that the universe is expanding, but it’s expanding more and more quickly than it should be, and scientists think that dark energy is the culprit.

       But where’s dark energy coming from? Some believe that it’s produced from collisions between quantum particles, but no-one knows for sure.

3) Quantum Entanglement – Spooky Action:

     Famously dubbed ‘spooky action at a distance’ by a dubious Albert Einstein, quantum entanglement is the phenomenon by which two particles in totally different parts of the universe can be linked to one another, mirroring the behaviour and state of their partner.

     Quantum entanglement is a bit of a nuisance for classical physics, because it breaks some fundamental laws that we previously thought unbreakable. For particles to be connected across such vast distances, they must be sending signals to one another that travel faster than the speed of light: a feat previously considered impossible. What’s more, objects are only supposed to be affected by their surroundings; the notion of a particle being affected by something happening on the other side of the universe is just...strange.

    Nonetheless, studies suggest that quantum entanglement does indeed exist. And even though we don’t understand it, we could still potentially use it. Because of its spooky characteristics, entanglement could eventually become the bedrock of next-generation computing and communications. So watch this space.

4) Antimatter – The Evil Twins:

     BImagine yourself in opposite land. Black is white, up is down and...matter is antimatter?

     It sounds crazy, but the sub-atomic particles that make up everything around us – electrons, protons and neutrons – all have evil twins. Antimatter particles are the same mass as normal particles, but the opposite electric charge.

       And because of this, antimatter wipes out normal matter on contact. Poof! Both are destroyed in an instant. So antimatter has the potential to destroy us and everything we love. But fear not! There’s very little antimatter roaming around in the cosmos.

    What’s more, antimatter could even prove useful. When antimatter and matter meet and destroy one another, it releases energy. In a PET scanner, anti-electrons are created and their annihilation in the body allows doctors to create sophisticated images. What’s more, scientists hope to one day use the energy released by antimatter/matter interactions to power spacecraft. So perhaps antimatter isn’t quite so evil after all.

5) The Fermi Paradox – Little Green Men:

     The universe is really big; like, really REALLY big. In the grand scheme of things, human beings are just small fry. And yet, we currently seem to be the only ones at the party.

    The Fermi Paradox refers to the contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life and the apparent lack of evidence that such life exists.

     We’ve now identified a handful of potentially habitable ‘Earth-like’ planets, but we’re still yet to see any signs of intelligent life from ‘out there’. So why the radio silence? There are numerous theories, ranging from the possibility that intelligent life is exceptionally rare or short-lived, to the notion that alien species are purposefully avoiding detection.

6) Black Holes – Massive Monsters:

       A constant staple of sci-fi thrillers, black holes are violent, vastly destructive and invisible.

     Black holes are regions of space in which the force of gravity is so powerful that everything around is drawn in. Not even light can escape, which is why we can’t see any of this going on.

    Experts think there could be up to 100 million black holes in our galaxy alone, and these monsters can grow to become billions of times more massive than the sun. What’s more, at the centre of most galaxies, including our own, lurks a super-massive black hole.

     But we don’t know what happens when objects pass through the centre. They might become ‘spaghettified’: stretched apart into long strings of matter; they could even be transported through a short-cut to a different part of our universe. Spooky.

7) Space Roar – Silent Scream:

     In space, no—one can hear you scream. Right? Space is a vacuum, so there shouldn’t be any noise. And yet...you guessed it, there is.

     The entire universe is alive with sound. And space roar isn’t just everyday sound; it’s actually these odd radio signals that we’ve detected throughout space. You know radio waves – we use them for communications: TV, cell phones, radios. Well, it looks like space is full of them, kicking out a noise that’s loud enough to drown out other signals – which is quite the nuisance for scientists trying to explore the cosmos.

    BSo where’s the roar coming from? Some think that it’s leftover radiation from early stars, others believe that it’s gasses swirling around galaxy clusters, or else galaxies themselves. But for now, the roaring universe remains another unsolved (and noisy) mystery.

8) Cosmic Rays – Ghostly Visitors:

      Space can be an intense place. But we’re totally shielded down here on Earth, aren’t we? Um...about that...

     Cosmic rays are high energy particles that come from outer space, and regularly bombard Earth. Generally, these particles are completely harmless – our atmosphere kindly protects us. But there are some exceptions.

      Up high in the stratosphere, cosmic rays can affect both human beings and electronics. Astronauts and aircraft crew are exposed to higher levels of radiation than the average person because of the presence of cosmic rays – although still not enough to be a major risk.

    But electronics are the real potential victims here. Very rarely, a cosmic ray particle with enough energy can go straight into an electronic system, causing serious damage. The high energy particles can disrupt electronic data, leading to system crashes. And in an increasingly digital world, that’s not good news.

    We’re only just beginning to learn about the potential impact that cosmic rays could have, and the race is on to find a solution.

9) The Multiverse – The Doppelganger:

   Want to feel small? Well, here goes: humanity is but a tiny speck on a planet, within a galaxy, that itself makes up just a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the universe. In fact, the universe is so vast, we’ve explored far less than 0.1% of it.

    And yet, it’s entirely possible that our universe is just one of many others. The multiverse theory suggests that the cosmos contains multiple universes. Indeed, some scientists believe that there are an infinite number of universes; which means an infinite number of civilisations, histories, and versions of you.

     However, the multiverse theory is still highly controversial, and we’re not likely to be charting parallel universes anytime soon. Sorry, guys.

10) The Big Crunch – The End of the World as We Know It?

      All good things must come to an end, even the universe itself. ‘But how’ you ask? Well, there are lots mind-blowing ideas out there.

     In the past, the deliciously named ‘Big Crunch’ suggests a scenario in which the universe’s expansion – which has been going on since the Big Bang – tapers off and instead gives way to the force of gravity. As a result, everything – planets, galaxies, clusters – is drawn together into a single, dense point of mass, until everything is wiped out. Don't get too worried though: this is all many billions of years away.

     These days, the Big Crunch is by no means the only theory out there concerning our inevitable demise. Other ideas include ‘the Big Freeze’, ‘the Big Bounce’ and ‘the Big Rip’. So rest assured, even if we don’t know how the universe ends, we know it’s going to be a pretty big event.

     For centuries, human beings have looked up at the stars and contemplated the universe and our place in it. From the dawn of time, we’ve always wanted to explore and make sense of the world, and yet, so many mysteries still remain.

    But amidst all the lingering uncertainties, one thing is for sure: the universe is so much stranger and more complex than we could ever have imagined.

String Theory

What is String Theory?

         One of the goals of Physics is to find a single theory that unites all of the four forces of nature. These are; electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. The first two are familiar. Electromagnetism is the force that holds a fridge magnet to a refrigerator while gravity is trying to pull it off towards the earth.

        The strong nuclear force is responsible for holding the central part of atoms (their nuclei) together, while the weak nuclear force is involved in the decay of these nuclei.

      In the attempt to tie all the four forces together a lot of interesting ideas and new theories have been proposed. One of the most promising of these new theories is string theory. In attempting to unite gravity with the three other forces, string theory requires us to change the way we view the universe.

        According to the theory all particles are actually tiny vibrating strings and each type of vibration corresponds to a different particle. The different particles are like the different notes that can be played by bowing a violin string. However, the strings of string theory almost certainly would not look like violin strings.

        String theory also requires us to accept the existence of extra dimensions in the universe. We are familiar with the four usual dimensions: up-down, forwards-backwards, left-right and time, but string theory requires seven more dimensions!

       A universe of eleven dimensions seems strange to us but many physicists think these extra dimensions are possible and are looking for ways to detect them.

      The attempt to unify the four forces of nature is one of the most exciting areas of physics. On the other hand there is the possibility that no single, theory exists that can describe all the forces of nature in a neat and tidy way as we would like.

      Whatever the outcome, scientists from all over the world will continue working together to discover what could be the ultimate theory of everything.

Physicist Brian Greene

Brian Greene

Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, and is recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory. His books, The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality, have collectively spent 65 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and were the basis of two award-winning NOVA mini-series, which he hosted. Professor Greene co-founded the World Science Festival in 2008 and serves as Chairman of the Board.

The Fabric of the Cosmos:

       Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

The Hidden Reality:

      Is our universe the only universe? There was a time when “universe” meant all there is. Everything. Yet, a number of theories are converging on the possibility that our universe may be but one among many parallel universes populating a vast multiverse. Here, Briane Greene, one of our foremost physicists and science writers, takes us on a breathtaking journey to a multiverse comprising an endless series of big bangs, a multiverse with duplicates of every one of us, a multiverse populated by vast sheets of spacetime, a multiverse in which all we consider real are holographic illusions, and even a multiverse made purely of math–and reveals the reality hidden within each.

Launch Delayed due to COVID-19

Mars Rover Launch Delayed Until 2022

  Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover, which was set to begin its journey to Mars in July, has had its launch postponed until 2022 amid parachute and electronics difficulties and uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The mission, which is a joint effort between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, is designed to seek out evidence of past life on Mars. It has already experienced numerous delays during its long development – and the latest postponement has been likely since tests of the rover’s parachute system ended in failure in August 2019.

“We’ve been racing against time in terms of getting everything ready,” says David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration at ESA. “And now we have the coronavirus issue, which is the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

During a meeting between ESA and Roscosmos, officials decided to delay the launch to allow time for the problems to be fixed. The orbital dynamics of Earth and Mars mean that launch windows only open for a few weeks every two years, to take advantage of the two planets’ closest approach to one another. The mission will now launch sometime between August and October 2022, reaching Mars by April 2023 at the earliest.

The problem with the parachutes lies in the way that they deploy from inside their protective bags. “They are packed incredibly tightly,” says Parker. “It’s almost a dark art how they are packed.”

During previous “drop-tests”, the main 15m and 35m parachutes developed large tears as they deployed. This prompted a redesign of the protective bags, and two more drop-tests were scheduled for the end of March in the US. However, travel bans imposed by the spread of coronavirus meant that these crucial tests were unlikely to happen in time.

Further complicating matters are troublesome glitches in the electronics units within the Russian lander, Kazachok, which will deploy Rosalind Franklin onto the surface and will carry 13 science instruments of its own. “One of the units will probably have to go back to Russia to be fixed,” says Parker. He adds that the current 14-day quarantine rules in place in Russia make it difficult for teams from Russia and European countries to be in the same place at the same time.

Andrew Coates, a physicist at the UK’s Mullard Space Science Laboratories who leads the science team on the rover’s panoramic camera (PanCam), points out that the extra time can be spent performing more simulations of how the rover will perform, with all nine instrument teams involved.

“This will still be a cutting-edge science mission in 2023, as it’s the only mission drilling 2 m underneath the harsh surface of Mars and looking for biomarkers and life,” he says. “We now just need to wait a bit longer.”

How Physics is Fighting the Latest Pandemic?

Coronavirus Puts Physics in Turmoil!

COVID-19 has hit the international physics community hard, with meetings and conferences cancelled, including the showpiece events of the American Physical Society. 

Thousands of physicists around the world have had their lives disrupted as the effects of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 took hold last month. In addition to seeing many schools, colleges and universities closed to halt the spread of the virus, physicists have also had many of their conferences and travel plans disrupted. The biggest casualty to the physics community was the week-long March Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) in Denver, Colorado, which was cancelled less than 36 hours before it was meant to start on 2 March.

The meeting was due to be attended by about 11,000 physicists from around the world, including many from China, where the virus originated. Devoted to condensed-matter, quantum, optical and atomic physics, the APS March Meeting is one of the largest events in the physics calendar, featuring thousands of talks and an exhibition with more than 150 companies.

Its cancellation caused shock-waves but on 12 March – a day after the World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a pandemic – the APS also abandoned its smaller April Meeting on particle physics and cosmology. It was due take place on 18–21 April in Washington DC, where a state of emergency had been declared.

Other major physics events that were lost included the three spring meetings of the German Physical Society in Bonn, Dresden and Hannover, as well as the 67th spring meeting of the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP). The Institute of Physics cancelled all national, branch and group events until the end of May and postponed any meetings due take place at its London headquarters over that period. The spring meeting of the European Materials Society, which was due to be held in Strasbourg, France, on 25–29 May, was postponed too.