The government will make an effort to highlight the importance of physics this year in a bid to boost the nation`s scientific and technological capacity.
This is according to science and technology minister Mosibudi Mangena, who addressed the 50th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics at the University of Pretoria yesterday.
He said the department would actively support various national initiatives to highlight the importance of physics throughout 2005 as well as world resolutions to declare 2005 the International Year of Physics.
"The year is in celebration of the 100 years of Einstein`s publication in 1905 of three incisive papers that contributed immensely to developments in physics and science as a whole," he noted.
Mangena said that without Einstein`s theories, the entire chemical industry, including that of petrol, plastic and synthetic materials, would not exist.
"The photo-electric effect was the forerunner of the transistor, discovered in 1947, and lasers, from the early 1960s, that have revolutionised the entire communications industry with computers, cellphones, laser discs, DVDs, digital cameras, the Internet and automatic banking services."
Mangena reiterated the government`s commitment to improving science and technology education and encouraging youth to take an interest in it. With this in mind, the government would support a promotional campaign under the slogan: "It`s your physics."
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