After 18 years, the Katowice branch of the Polish Physical Society once again invites you to visit the city and participate in the Congress of Polish Physicists in Katowice. The conference will take place from Friday, 5 September to Thursday, 11 September 2025, with the first day reserved for arrivals and registration.
Although the axis of the Congress is the former seat of the August Chełkowski Institute of Physics at the University of Silesia in Katowice, off-site sessions are also planned at the Silesian Philharmonic and the Planetarium – Silesian Science Park. The morning session on 6 September will be held at the Silesian Philharmonic with the participation of the guest of honour –Prof. Anne L’Huillier, 2023 Nobel Prize winner. The session will be combined with the presentation of the M. Smoluchowski Medal. Considering the type of venue, the event would not be complete without wonderful musical experiences, during which we will explore the line between the symmetry of physics, the art of composition and performance.
The other weekend sessions have been prepared while keeping in mind issues such as teaching, physics communication, young scientists and the largest scientific centres. Bearing in mind that the conference is taking place during the school year, this is the most convenient time for school teachers to exchange experiences with academic teachers. Two sessions are also planned at the Planetarium – Silesian Science Park in Silesian Park in Chorzów. Moreover, only 4 km away from the conference venue participants will be able to find an institution promoting achievements in astronomy, astrophysics, geophysics, optics, elementary particle physics, and other fields.
In recent years, the Planetarium has been thoroughly renovated, expanded and modernised to effectively tackle new tasks. Thanks to the GOTO Chiron III hybrid celestial projection system and a specially designed screen, even the smallest stars visible to the naked eye look natural and do not disappear from the screen. The acoustics are refined, muffling unnecessary reverberation. The exhibitions are equipped with an earthquake simulator, a lightning generator, a tornado generator, rooms where you can experience four different climates in quick succession, space flight simulators, a three-dimensional projection of interstellar flight, an observation tower with a camera obscura, as well as many other attractions.
The Congress of Polish Physicists is the largest cyclical physics conference organised every two years at various academic centres throughout the country, contributing to technological development through the use and creation of the foundations of the latest technologies. The last edition (48th Congress of Polish Physicists 2023 in Gdańsk) attracted nearly 460 participants, including almost 100 teachers, around 80 doctoral students, as well as university and school students.
The 49th Congress of Polish Physicists is being held on the 102nd anniversary of the first Congress, organised in Warsaw in April 1923, three years after the Founding Congress of the Polish Physical Society. The tradition of organising an event for all physicists associated with Poland through their work continues to this day, and only the events of World War II and the occupation of Poland managed to halt this platform for the exchange of information providing the driving force for the development of national physics centres.
The conference provides an overview of the most important research related to Polish centres. The lecture sessions allow for the presentation of achievements in various branches of physics, divided into thematic panels, as well as related sciences, technology used in experiments and theory development, as well as issues of education and research funding. At the same time, participants will be able to attend student sessions and presentations by student research group, as well as presentations by event sponsors. As usual, the programme of the event also includes a poster session. A session is also planned to enable students to establish contacts with future employers.
The 49th Congress of Polish Physicists has become one of the official events of UNESCO’s ‘International Year of Quantum Science & Technology’.
Detailed information about the venue can be found on the website.