The IOP is the professional body and learned society for physics in the UK & Ireland, with an active role in promoting co-operation in physics around the world.
We’re delighted to announce
@ClaraMBarker
as the new IOP Inclusion and Diversity Representative.
Dr Barker says: “I look forward to working with different groups who share a passion for physics but feel they cannot achieve their maximum potential. (1/2)
Happy birthday to Marie Skłodowska Curie, born
#onthisday
in 1867. During her career she discovered radium and polonium and was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. She remains the only person to receive a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.
#WomeninSTEM
#IYPT2019
Happy first day of
#autumn
! Today is the
#Septemberequinox
, meaning the days are noticeably shorter and the nights longer. Equinoxes occur when the Sun illuminates the Northern and Southern Hemispheres equally, so day and night are of roughly equal length.
#autumnequinox
Happy birthday Marie Curie, who was born
#onthisday
in 1867. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and the first person (and only woman) to be awarded twice. She still remains the only person to receive a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.
#WomeninSTEM
Happy Birthday to Sir Isaac Newton, born
#onthisday
(according to the Gregorian calendar) in 1643. Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation, the three laws of motion, is credited for co-developing calculus, and invented the first working reflecting telescope.
As Katharine Birbalsingh steps down as the government social mobility tsar, a thread on girls, physics & the devastating effect of stereotypes.
Girls are not put off physics because of "hard maths" (girls got more top grades than boys in A level maths in 2021 & 2022). Instead,
Happy Birthday to Isaac Newton, born
#onthisday
(New Style dates) in 1643. During his life, Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation, the three laws of motion, is credited for co-developing calculus, and invented the first working reflecting telescope.
Happy Birthday to Sir Isaac Newton, born
#onthisday
(according to the Gregorian calendar) in 1643. Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation, the three laws of motion, is credited for co-developing calculus, and invented the first working reflecting telescope.
Is there life on Mars?🤔🚀 Dr. Catherine Regan from
@MSSLSpaceLab
discusses her work as a planetary scientist, our search for Martian life, and the upcoming Rosalind Franklin mission.
Join our series to explore space's biggest questions with top experts. Learn more at
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, which celebrates the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The woman today is named after, Ada Lovelace, is considered the world’s first computer programmer.
#AdaLovelaceDay
This Thursday is International Women’s Day and to mark it we’re celebrating women who've made a significant contribution to physics. Celebrate with us by telling us who your favourite female physicist is – past or present – and why they inspire you using
#WomeninPhysics
#IWD2018
#Onthisday
in 1868 French astronomer, Pierre Janssen discovered helium during a solar eclipse when he spotted a previously undiscovered spectral line in the spectrum of the Sun.
#IYPT2019
Massive congratulations to our former President, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who has won the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics! Her prize money is to be donated for new studentships. Read more 👇
#WomeninSTEM
The IOP is very concerned at the continued use of outdated stereotypes as we firmly believe
#physics
is for everyone regardless of their background or gender.
#WomenInScience
- next Monday is International Day of Women & Girls in Science, so celebrate with us by tweeting a selfie and telling us what you do in physics using
#iamaphysicist
! We’ll retweet your selfies between now and Monday, so get snapping and sharing!
#WomenInSTEM
Happy birthday to Michael Faraday, who was born
#onthisday
in 1791. He is credited with the discovery of electromagnetic induction, and established the annual
@Ri_Science
Christmas Lectures.
🚀 "There's so much that's amazing, interesting, and beautiful!" 🌌
Hear from Helen Sharman, the first British person in space, as she reveals the best thing about being an astronaut. Today, we kick off a new series where industry experts answer our burning space questions, and
Happy birthday to Michael Faraday, who was born
#onthisday
in 1791. He is credited with the discovery of electromagnetic induction, and established the annual
@Ri_Science
Christmas Lectures.
Happy Birthday to theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, born
#onthisday
in 1942 and is best known for his work on black holes and for authoring the popular-science book, A Brief History of Time.
“We need to celebrate women physicists because we are out there, and hopefully in time it will move forward at a faster rate. I am honoured to be one of those women.” Donna Strickland, new
#NobelPrize
laureate in Physics.
Calling all
#WomenInScience
– this Thursday is International Day of Women & Girls in Science. Celebrate with us by tweeting a selfie & telling us what you do in physics using
#IAmAPhysicist
. We’ll retweet your selfies on
#WomenScienceDay
, so be sure to snap & share!
#WomenInSTEM
Be sure to look up tonight as a
#supermoon
will be gracing our night sky.
Officially known as a perigean full moon, this event occurs when the full moon is at its closest point to the Earth, making it appear bigger and brighter. 🌕
#sciencefromhome
Calling all
#WomenInScience
- next Tues is International Day of Women & Girls in Science. Celebrate with us by tweeting a selfie and tell us what you do in physics using
#iamaphysicist
. We’ll retweet your selfies on
#WomenScienceDay
, so be sure to snap and share!
#WomenInSTEM
Thanks to the generosity of Dame Jocelyn, we are proud to announce the launch a new PhD scholarship fund to encourage greater diversity in Physics – The Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund.
#BellBurnellFund
Happy birthday Ada Lovelace, born
#onthisday
in 1815. She was an English mathematician and is considered to be the first computer programmer.
#WomeninSTEM
Remember last year when Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for the discovery of radio pulsars? She decided to donate ALL of her £2.3m Breakthrough Prize money to us. 2/5
Tomorrow is International Day of Women & Girls in Science, and to celebrate, we will be retweeting your
#IAmAPhysicist
selfies throughout the day. So share your pics and tell us what you do in physics using
#IAmAPhysicist
.
#WomenScienceDay
Today is International Day of Women & Girls in Science, which celebrates and recognises the important role women play in science and technology. Discover inspiring women working in
#physics
today at
#IAmAPhysicist
#WomenInScienceDay
Calling all
#WomeninSTEM
! Are you a physicist? What advice would you give to girls and women looking to go into a physics career? Tweet us your words of wisdom using
#PassOnMyWisdom
and we will retweet for International Womens Day 👩🚀👩🔧👩🏭👩🏫👩⚕️👩🔬
#Womeninphysics
#IWD2019
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, which celebrates the achievements of women in STEM. Check out
#IAmAPhysicist
for inspiring examples of women working in physics today.
#AdaLovelaceDay
#WomeninSTEM
Today is International Women's Day! We’re celebrating women who've made a significant contribution to physics, so tell us who your favourite physicist is – past or present – and why they inspire you!
#WomeninPhysics
#IWD2018
#PressforProgress
The IOP is alarmed by comments made by the government’s social mobility commissioner to MPs that more girls decide not to study A-level
#physics
because they “don’t like” hard maths. Read our full statement:
No young person should feel locked out of physics yet many are put off from studying it. There are no limits to what can be achieved with physics. Our campaign, Limit Less, will ensure there are no limits on who can take part. Join today:
#IOPLimitLess
Congratulations to Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who becomes the second woman to be awarded the
@royalsociety
’s prestigious Copley Medal. Dame Jocelyn will be donating her prize money to our Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund. Read more:
girls (and young people from ethnic minorities and disadvantaged backgrounds) are put off physics because they’re told from an early age that physics is not for them.
Like: "My dad told me not to study physics because it wasn’t for women and the maths was too hard.”
Given today's comments about girls and physics we thought it was worth retweeting this report from 2015. The IOP will continue to reject negative stereotypes about physics and who should be studying it.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of theoretical physicist, Maria Göppert-Mayer, who was the second woman to win a
#NobelPrize
in
#physics
for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.
#WomeninSTEM
UK followers: look out for a
#totallunareclipse
during the early hours of Monday morning (21 Jan). Totality (when the Moon appears red) will be from 4:41am–5:43am GMT. The next total lunar eclipse from the UK will be 20 Dec 2029, so fingers crossed for clear skies!
#Bloodmoon
Today is Halloween and tonight it will be an extra spooky one as our night sky will be graced by a blue moon – the second full moon in a month. Full moons appearing at Halloween are rare – occurring every 19 years, so the next time it will happen is 2039.
#Halloween
#BlueMoon
The IOP was delighted this afternoon to welcome HRH The Duke of Edinburgh to its Physics Green Economy event to hear how physics innovation can deliver the green solutions society needs
#IOPGreenEconomy
#Netzero
#Onthisday
in 1959, theoretical physicist Richard Feynman gave his famous lecture at the American Physical Society, which is considered to be where the concept of nanotechnology was first discussed. Watch his 1984 retelling of the lecture here
Happy birthday to astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who was born
#onthisday
in 1868, and who discovered the relationship between the luminosity of Cepheid variable stars and the period of the oscillations in that luminosity.
#WomeninSTEM
#Onthisday
in 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie announced their discovery of radium, a highly radioactive element that can be very dangerous, but was once used in everyday products such as toothpaste.
#IYPT2019
Many girls are told that some subjects are more suited to boys. One of these subjects is physics. Did you know that in 2020, only 2.6% of girls chose A-level physics in England compared to 8.6% of boys?
This needs to change. 1/2
"Whenever a topic was mentioned that linked to A-level physics, our teacher would look towards a certain group of boys and say, “you’ll need to remember this for A-level”, even when I’d told him at various revision sessions that I was considering physics as a degree."
Happy Birthday to Nobel laureate and IOP Honorary Fellow, Donna Strickland, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on chirped pulse amplification in 2018.
#WomeninSTEM
#NobelPrize
“My A-level teacher told me that girls didn’t tend to be very good at physics, so I might struggle at uni. He said there was only one girl on his undergraduate course and that she wasn’t very good.”
We are please to see that Physics A-level numbers and proportion of female entries in physics have gone up this year. Read more -
#alevelresults2018
#resultsday
Happy Birthday to theoretical physicist, Maria Göppert-Mayer, who was born
#onthisday
on 1906 and was the second woman to win a Nobel Prize in physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.
#WomeninSTEM
Happy birthday to theoretical physicist, Max Planck, born
#onthisday
in 1858 and known for his eponymous blackbody radiation law and for founding quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1918.
Happy birthday to astrophysicist and former IOP president, Prof Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who donated her £2.3m Breakthrough Prize to support PhD
#physics
students from under-represented groups. This year, over £1m has been granted to awardees of the Fund.
Read more here: