Dr Danilo Türk Congratulates Slovenian Physicists on their Resounding Success

Ljubljana, 17.10.2011  |  press release

The Slovenian president, Dr Danilo Türk, visited the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics where he met with the Faculty's management and researchers in the area of soft matter physics. He then visited the Jožef Stefan Institute where he met with the Institute's management, toured the laboratories and took note of its researchers' resounding successes in the physics of liquid crystals.

On 1 July 2011, the Institute's and the Faculty's associates, Uroš Tkalec, Miha Ravnik, Simon Čopar, Slobodan Žumer and Igor Muševič, published a landmark article in the Science Review, where they presented their research on reconfigurable knots and links in liquid crystal colloids. The work published is not only a presentation of mathematic theory in physics, but is potentially also of practical importance. Indeed, the authors expect that the knots and links in liquid crystals could be used for the assembly and creation of photonic matter to regulate the stream of light information through optical liquid crystal microcircuits.

Following the presentation, the Slovenian president congratulated the scientists on their superb achievements which, in his view, prove that Slovenia has state-of-the-art scientific potential, highly prized at the global level. He considers the links between the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and the Jožef Stefan Institute an interesting and significant model of cooperation between pedagogical and scientific work, including the interaction between research and practical results. Such models of cooperation should be better understood and used in the development of universities, the sciences and all their practical aspects, added the Slovenian president.