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Physics since Einstein - DPG Conference 2005

The UNESCO and the UN General Assembly have proclaimed the year 2005 to be the World/International Year of Physics (see http://www.wyp2005.org/internationalyear.html). Around the globe there will be special events in the year 2005 related to physics and to Albert Einstein. The motive for this is the 100th anniversary of the year 1905, in which Einstein published his three fundamental papers on the Photoelectric Effect, the Brownian Molecular Motion and on the Theory of Special Relativity. The annual conference of the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, DPG) in 2005 will therefore be held under the motto "Physics since Einstein" and will be the first German physics conference in recent times where all the Divisions and Working Committees of the DPG will join together at a single meeting. Particle physicists, atomic physicists, biophysicists, condensed-matter physicists, quantum-optics physicists and all the others, all around 35 Divisions and Working Committees of the DPG, will meet simultaneously in Berlin. The newly-founded "Working Committee for the Philosophy of Physics" will also organise a symposium.

The DPG is the oldest and - with more than 47,000 members - also the largest physical society worldwide. More than 6,000 participants from Germany and abroad are expected at the Annual Conference in 2005. Many of them will be young, active researchers still doing their doctoral work, or recent PhD's. They come for the most part from universities and government-supported research institutions, but also from industrial research and development departments.

It is a major goal of this international conference to demonstrate to the participants, i.e. to the physicists themselves, but also to the general public, that physics in its enormous breadth - from cosmology to the physics of inert and living materials down to the elementary particles - represents an integral structure, and that its topics of interest all rest on the common foundation of the basic physical laws. These laws are, as far as we know, universally valid and timeless, and Albert Einstein made essential and immutable discoveries about them which he formulated ingeniously.

A second goal of the conference is to enable the many young participants to listen to reports about current research from other branches of physics directly from those colleagues who are carrying out the work. This second goal is particularly important, since the cooperation between different areas of physics and with related disciplines, especially chemistry or biology (but for example also with mathematics or sociology) have often grown into new research areas.

A third goal of the conference is, of course, to bring together all members of the DPG Divisions and Working Committees for their annual reports and for critical discussions of their newest research.

The conference is thus organised as follows (see the Programme):

1. Altogether 23 Plenary and Evening Lectures (all of them public) delivered by renowned scientists from Germany and from abroad (see Plenary / Evening / Sunday talks).
2. 21 multidisciplinary symposia (see Symposia). Among them three "Einstein Symposia" dedicated to Dark Matter, Brownian Molecular Motion, and the Photoelectric Effect.
3. More than 650 sessions (most of them parallel sessions) with lectures and poster sessions. These presentations are the heart of the meeting.
4. An Industry Day, were physicist from universities and government-supported research institutes meet their colleagues working in enterprises.
5. The Academic Celebration. The German Federal Chancellor and the Lord Mayor of Berlin will attend and both give a brief address. At the Celebration, Fritz Stern from Columbia University, New York, will give the plenary lecture. The two most prestigious prizes of the DPG will also be presented during the Celebration. And, of course, the president of the DPG, Professor Knut Urban (Research Centre Jülich), will address the participants.
6. Visits to research institutes: 19 research institutes in Berlin and Potsdam will be open to the participants of the conference.
7. European Masterclasses "Hands on Particle Physics"