European Physical Society Meets at Dublin City University

25 June 2010

The 37th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics opened at The Helix, Dublin City University, on Monday 16th June.  More than seven hundred scientists are participating in the five day meeting, which will draw visitors from more than forty countries. Over sixty Irish scientists will be attending the conference.  Plasma science is interdisciplinary, and the conference will see specialists exchanging ideas across an extraordinary diversity of subjects, ranging from technologies so advanced as to sound like science fiction, such as laser wakefield accelerators and high energy fusion reactors, to the most fundamental studies of the natural world around us, in the form of astrophysics and geophysics.  Between these extremes is the increasingly important area of industrial applications of the plasmas.

The conference will hear exciting new results on all these topics, and lively discussion is expected on many controversial issues.  The number of Irish participants, and the decision of the European Physical Society to hold the meeting in Ireland for the first time, reflects the increasing profile of Irish science in general and plasma physics in particular.  The meeting is organized by the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology, based at Dublin City University. More information about the conference is available at http://www.eps2010.com