So sad to see the loss of another laser pioneer with the passing of Orazio Svelto on 10 Jan. As well as being an inspiring scientist who helped create the European ultrafast community, he was gracious and generous with his time and support for international science. www.ansa.it/canale_scien...

Wonderful news and heartfelt congratulations to UCL prof Polina Bayvel on being named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2026 New Year Honours List. A truly outstanding and well-deserved achievement. Congratulations, Polina!

History of Quantum Dots: It was a pleasure to collaborate to this movie on the history of quantum dots. Produced as part of of the PÉPITES program of the French Optical Society, SFO. @c2n-nanos.bsky.social youtu.be/p89chOVElSA?...

We here in Madison do not do a good job celebrating this, but we should:

Today is Lise Meitner's birthday, as well as Marie Curie. I wrote this blogpost about Meitner and her life a while back. Let's celebrate the woman who 'never lost her humanity'. occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald...

John Bell released Bell's theorem on 4 November 1964. home.cern/news/news/ph... In 1972, Bernard d'Espagnat was the first to nominate him for the Nobel Prize. As the Nobel archives progressively come on line, we will surely see that he was nominated very many times afterwards as well ...

Great news for Michael Berry who has received the Isaac Newton medal of the IOP. What I absolutely love about his work is that it cuts across so many different areas of physics - from the foundations of quantum physics to understanding the rainbow. physicsworld.com/a/theoretica...

Those outside the field really don't pay enough attention to what goes on in condensed matter. Indeed, even the excellent DPG Quantum History Wall didn't include yesterday's Nobel Prize winning work on tunnelling in its list of quantum milestones of the 1980s! www.quantum-history.de

If you love supercontinuum (and who doesn't!) check out our forward-looking Perspective in EPL which is free to read. Thanks @jctravs.bsky.social Thibaut Sylvestre, Alex Heidt, Roy Taylor, Goery Genty iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Reposting to @tsizer.bsky.social via JL Beylat. What about a tribute at the 100 year session at ECOC ?

Very sad to hear that the great soliton pioneer Akira Hasegawa has died on June 22. His work truly was revolutionary in so many ways and impacted so many different fields. An obituary from Columbia is below. www.apam.columbia.edu/memoriam-pro...

Anyone with a library endowment fund who doesn't know what to do with it? First edition of Opticks for sale!

I just had some fun verifing the 1/r potential drop from a plasma ball. The idea is from @simonpoliakoff.bsky.social and his video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=crW7... To get close to the ball (5 mm) I used a 10kOhm feedthrough terminator which yields around 25 V peak-peak !

RIP the great Tom Lehrer ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3...

RIP Tom Lehrer

No comment needed really ...

This is incredible from Les Wright ! It has everything: lasers, home grown nonlinear optics crystals, and a home made Arduino-driven diamond saw. If you're planning to colonize Mars to avoid an apocalypse, include Les in your passenger list! youtu.be/RxjqMh3gkx8?...

Impact factors certainly do not tell the whole story, but in what is more or less an annual tradition, I have compiled a list for some physics/optics journals. Note that there are truly excellent articles in all of these journals and different journals play very different roles in the community.

Planning to apply for #research #funding from the ERC? From the next application rounds, expect changes to the: • proposal structure • evaluation process • extra funding you can request • eligibility for Starting & Consolidator #Grants (from 2027) More 👇 europa.eu/!RPHWvv

Big changes to the ERC funding schemes! Note the new eligibility criteria from 2027 on: 📌 Starting Grant: 0-10 y post-PhD 📌 Consolidator Grant: 5-15 y post-PhD erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

Just learned that the Wii remote triangulates position via IR sources in the bar you place on the TV. Most phone cameras allow you to see the emitters (top) but in fact you don't need them. You can replace the bar by two candles and it works just fine! Am sure most people knew this already ...

Il n'y a pas "trop" de deux musées scientifiques à Paris! (surtout comparé au nombre de musées d'art 😅) Et surtout quand ceux ci apportent des choses différentes (tellement de souvenirs! ⚡👩‍🦱). NE LAISSONS PAS LE PALAIS DISPARAITRE! signez la pétition et partagez 🙏 ⬇️ www.change.org/p/sauvons-le...

Our library holds a rare copy of the proceedings of the 1911 Solvay Conference on physics, and I enjoyed looking through it (very carefully) today. As well as the amazing discussions and pictures (these are from Perrin) it seems a previous reader had been practicing their French at the same time!

Good morning everyone! Just the seasons doing their thing!

Tenure-track Junior Professor Chair at Université Marie et Louis Pasteur & FEMTO-ST in micro/nanotech for healthcare. Top-tier research environment & amazing quality of life in Besançon. Details (FR/EN): www.femto-st.fr/sites/defaul... Deadline June 16 but make informal contact first!

Lighting up a handheld He-Ne tube in the field of a plasma globe #pintofscience Thanks to Andrei Ermolaev for the photo!

#PintofScience tonight! Slightly more of a logistical challenge than in a lecture theatre but still it all works out!

Today is the International Day of Light and the International Day of Peace! At DarkSky, we believe that thoughtful lighting can lead to a better and more peaceful tomorrow for all. 📷 By Clearsky Astrofoto / Jakob Arthur Andersen in Anholt, Denmark—An International Dark Sky Park.

This is fantastic!

I was really happy to participate today to this very nice event for the international day of light #IDL at the university of Catania. sites.google.com/dfa.unict.it... also a good occasion to have wonderful arancini, cannoli, granite ... always a pleasure to come to #Sicily

We're not done yet! The Multimedia University of Kenya Optica Student Chapter held engaging lectures, interactive sessions, and informal presentations highlighting key takeaways from the watch party. How has your #LightDay2025 been?

“We should have a celebration on the International Day of Light.” “We should involve the Optica Student Chapters.” “We can ask them to post photos from their events.” “And Optica can do a 24-hour, round-the-clock social media campaign sharing these photos from chapters.” This is the result. 🧵

Celebrating #LightDay2025 with a general lecture for staff and students on The Nature of Light, and Light in Nature. Thanks to the members of the @optica.org @spie.org student chapter and all the local comms staff who helped with the organisation! @idlofficial.bsky.social

Celebrating #LightDay2025 with a general lecture for staff and students on The Nature of Light, and Light in Nature. Thanks to the members of the @optica.org @spie.org student chapter and all the local comms staff who helped with the organisation! @idlofficial.bsky.social

Celebrating #lightday2025 here is a beautiful photo (from Dan Curticapean) of Sainte-Chapelle through a Fisheye View (Paris). The colours arise from nanoplasmonic resonances and you can read more about the physics here: doi.org/10.1063/1.35...

Higher Resolution

Great interview with Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts on luck, discovery, creativity, failure, and how our education systems are suppressing creativity. www.youtube.com/shorts/QNHTo...

Great interview with Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts on luck, discovery, creativity, failure, and how our education systems are suppressing creativity. www.youtube.com/shorts/QNHTo...

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

Exciting Science Teaching Opportunity! Are you a science educator looking for a part-time role in the North London & Hertfordshire area? Are you passionate about girls in STEM? Join us 👇 www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy...

So here are the dates: Grimaldi - 1665. Newton's "New Theory about Light & Colours" - 1672. Newton's Opticks - 1704. No feathers anywhere! But in Opticks 2nd Edition 1718, we find a brief paragraph inserted describing colours and fringes from feathers & ribbons (red mark in second image).

After Newton's 1672 letter on prisms, in 1673 James Gregory wrote to John Collins asking him to tell Newton that you could also see colours looking through a feather! This quick experiment does not show exactly the same thing so I need to hunt for more feathers! Thanks to @astchalyan.bsky.social !

After Newton's 1672 letter on prisms, in 1673 James Gregory wrote to John Collins asking him to tell Newton that you could also see colours looking through a feather! This quick experiment does not show exactly the same thing so I need to hunt for more feathers! Thanks to @astchalyan.bsky.social !

Science funding is under attack in the United States. This is a dire national problem with profound global implications, but we can fight back. Use the form on our website to tell your representatives to advocate for federal research and science funding. Act now: spie.org/community-su...

The scientific news from America is grim. The Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) has resigned and hundreds of existing grants are ending. NSF grant money isn't paid out in a chunk at the start - you invoice as you need it, so gov can just stop paying. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It would be very healthy for human species, If there is less Discouragement.

ANZAC Day post. My father was wounded at Gazala (Libya) in 1941 and spend time in a battlefield hospital recovering. Thanks to the amazing NZ PapersPast we found a letter he wrote home at the time. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/O... Below an extract & photo taken when on leave recovering.

A thing that I've been kicking around for a while about the tension between academia as a community and academia as a workplace: open.substack.com/pub/chadorze...

This is a fantastic read! A workflow based on tickets and websites may be more efficient for some, but it's overall dehumanising the workplace, and my own experience is very clear that it's decreasing efficiency! It's a kind of "we have to do it" idealogy based on no real evidence. Any comments?