GROVE CITY, Pa. -- Grove City College physics professor DJ Wagner will help usher in the International Year of Light in the City of Lights.

Wagner, who serves as president of the Society of Physics Students, was invited to participate in the opening ceremonies of the United Nations-sanctioned observance of 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies Jan. 19 and 20 at United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris, France.

Wagner will be part of a 10-person contingent representing the American Institute of Physics at the event, which recognizes “the importance of light based technologies in meeting the needs of humankind.” They will be among a group of 1,500 scientists, industrialists, public officials and researchers marking the occasion.

“Light and light-based technology affect every aspect of our lives,” Wagner said. “Light from the sun warms us, grows our food, and provides solar energy for many technologies. Optical fibers are used in communication, medicine, decorative lighting, computing and toys. Lasers are used in surgery, at the grocery store scanner, to expand our understanding of nature, and to point at something in the classroom.”

Wagner noted the constant evolution of light-based technology, from LEDs that were once simple indicator lights on control panels now replacing incandescent bulbs to the distinct possibility of light-based computers in the near future. “The International Year of Light 2015 gives us all a chance to reflect upon how much of what we do depends upon light,” she said.

Wagner plans to focus on light and the cutting-edge technologies that will be discussed at the opening ceremonies during her classes and through Physics Club outreach to area children.

The International Year of Light will also commemorate a series of important milestones in the history of the science of light. These include the first published studies on optics by Ibn al-Haytham a millennium ago in the Middle East, the introduction of the theory of light as a wave in 1815 in France, Alfred Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1915 and discovery in 1965 by American scientists of the cosmic microwave background, an echo of the origin of the universe.

Source: Grove City College.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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