The Activities of the Network implemented in the second part of the year were financed by UNESCO-ROSTE under Contract No. 875.834.6. The whole program was proposed and implemented through three main actions:

  • SEENET-MTP School in Sofia (Action 1)
  • SEENET-MTP Exchange Program (Action 2)
  • Continuation and further improvement of distribution of information thorough the Network, support of gifted pupils

ACTION 1  – SEENET-MTP School

The central event within the Program of the Southeast European Network in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics (SEENET-MTP) in the year 2006 was The International School on Modern Trends in Mathematical Physics, held in Sofia, Bulgaria, 24 – 30 September 2006. It was the first school of that kind in Sofia and a meeting outside of the coordinator`s country substantially supported by the SEENET-MTP Network and UNESCO-BRESCE project. This School was of a high scientific level at the same time followed by a workshop and development session activities. This event was very important for further development of the Network structure and its promotion outside the region. The participants got the certificates with a clear identification of the UNESCO-BRESCE support.

ACTION 2 – SEENET-MTP Exchange Program

Network exchange and mobility

1) MSc Theodoros Grammatikopoulos (Athens) visited Faculty of Physics, Belgrade, Serbia, (September 2006). Thorough this visit he continued scientific collaboration and prepared his PhD thesis and one joint scientific paper. Prof. G. Zoupanos (Athens) visited Faculty of Physics, Belgrade in the same period conducting joint research.

1a) MSc Dragoljub Dimitrijevic (Nis) visited Faculty of Physics, Belgrade in the same period – (September 2006), Action 2 and Action 3.

2) Prof. Neven Bilic (Zagreb) visited Faculty of Science, Nis, Serbia, (September 2006). He presented scientific results of his group in two lectures: The Dark Side of the Universe (public lecture, partially devoted to the pupils, Action 3) and Quartessence: Unification of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

3) Prof. Francesco Toppan (Rio) visited Faculty of Science, Nis, (September 2006). He gave a series of lectures: Introduction to Supersymmetry and Quantum Mechanics (3 lectures) and Irreducible representation in Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics.

Lectures of Prof. Bilic and Prof. Toppan, under a joint name SELECTED TOPICS IN MODERN PHYSICS attracted a respectable audience of about 150 researchers, students and pupils continually promoted as an UNESCO-SEENET-MTP event by local electronic media and newspapers.

4) Prof. Goran Djordjevic (Nis) visited Faculty of Science, Zagreb, Croatia and LMU & MPI Munich, Germany. During his stay in Zagreb he presented his scientific results in p-adic and noncommutative quantum theory and discussed further collaboration with Professors Bilic, Milekovic, Prester as well with the Head of partner institutions in Zagreb.

5) Dr. Ljubisa Nesic (Nis) visited University of Craiova (May 2006) and gave the invited talk Exactly solvable models on nonarchimedean spaces at the Spring School in Quantum Field Theory and Hamiltonian Systems.

6) Prof. Goran Djordjevic (Nis) visited Sofia (September 2006). Beside main partner institution INRNE, he visited Faculty of Physics and Faculty of Mathematics. The review entitled Current status and perspectives of collaboration in Mathematical Physics in Balkan region – Nonarchimedean and noncommutative geometry and application (a personal view) were presented.

7) Dr. Ljubisa Nesic (Nis) visited Faculty of Physics, Belgrade (September 2006), presented his result and met guests-lecturers of Faculty of Physics and Institute of Physics, Belgrade interestid in giving invited lecturers at Network`s meeting proposed for 2007.

8 ) Prof. Maja Buric (Belgrade) and her collaborators visited Faculty of Science, Zagreb (February 2007) and gave a talk Renormalizability of the gauge sector in the noncommutative standard model.

9) Prof. Goran Djordjevic visited Institute Jozef Stefan (Ljubljana), ICTP (Trieste) and UNESCO-BRESCE (Venice) (November-December 2006). In Ljubljana, he gave talk p-Adic Quantum Theory – 20 years later. During his stay at the ICTP he presented his recent results at the ICTP regular seminar Classical and Quantum Tachyons. This trip was ended in UNESCO-BRESCE office. The main topic of discussion between director of the Office and his collaborator and coordinator of the SEENET-MTP Network was the results of Network in the last years and future collaboration and financing of the Network through BRESCE programs.

10) Prof. Voja Radovanovic (Belgrade) visited Faculty of Science, Nis (June 2006). He gave two talks, one for advanced students and researchers and one for gifted pupils (Action 3). This activity is also symbolically supported by the Network.

Despite of the big delay in approval of the SEENET-MTP project by UNESCO-ROSTE/BRESCE (October 2005-May 2006), payment (May-August 2006) and a substantial reduction of the budget (about 40%), support of the UNESCO BRESCE was extremely useful and important for the Network. Several researchers were not able to realize previously announced exchange but almost all were replaced with their colleagues from the same node. We do hope that UNESCO-BRESCE will continue to support this Network and exchange in the future.

ACTION 3 – Continuation and further improvement of distribution of information through the Network, support of gifted pupils

Let us remind the web server for the Network activities was provided in November 2005. The new web presentation was activated and promoted at the same time.

Additional hardware were bought in 2006 and at the beginning of 2007 enabling double speed in some calculation as well as upgrading many services at the web server. Continual upgrading of software implemented by web master Milan Milosevic provided fast and efficient access to the Network data base and fast distribution of information.

Hosting and maintaining: the web server is located in the building of the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics in Nis. The Web presentation of the Network was visited about 100 000 times during last year. Some assistance from the local web administrator should be noted. This web presentation represents a good source of information for colleagues in the region. Full statistics can be provided at request. We propose increasing financial resources for maintaining of the web presentation because it is a demanding and time consuming work.

Support of the activities related to high school classes for pupils with special abilities in physics and sciences

One important part of activities was the organization of attractive public lectures. The way of dealing with the topics as well as the topics themselves were adjusted for high school pupils. Some of the lecturers and lectures (in Serbian) were so attractive that gathered the audience of hundreds of people.

Guest lecturers

  • N. Bilic (Zagreb)
  • V. Radovanovic (Belgrade)
  • A. Balaz (Belgrade)

Over 40 books and journals on mathematics and physics were bought and donated to the best pupils). Also, some of the books will be used by teachers for everyday activities in high school classes for pupils with special abilities in physics and sciences.

Teachers who have been engaged in teaching the best pupils for competitions in Physics and Mathematics and who prepared comparative tests for class evaluation, their implementation, evaluation and its forthcoming publication in English were symbolically granted. A part of the results was presented at Balkan Physics Union conference (BPU6) in Istanbul and published in the Conference Proceedings (manuscript is a part of this report) and UNESCO-BRESCE support is kindly acknowledged.

Pupils in this class achieved excellent results in competition, first of all in mathematics and physics, on regional and national level. Majority of the results are still available in Serbian only (www.pmf.ni.ac.yu/f_odeljenje). This class attracted more and more gifted pupils during last two years and the fourth generation is the best one. This pilot project is proposed by the Commission of Serbian Ministry of education to be accepted as a permanent program in Serbia. Very promising contacts have been established with similar classes in Sofia.