The WYP logo

TO brand the World Year of Physics (WYP) and to market the various physics outreach and promotional activities that have been planned worldwide as part of the celebration, a colourful logo has been created. Designed by Paul Stearn of the European Physical Society (EPS), it has the shape of an hourglass (sand clock) to depict the passage of time as time is intrinsic to all science and especially to physics.

In the context of the centenary of 1905, when Einstein dramatically altered our notion of time, the design can also be seen to represent the light cone in the Special Theory of Relativity. The vertical refers to the time dimension and the horizontal the spatial dimension, and the intersection of the diagonals represents `here and now' - the origin. The crossing diagonal lines represent the paths, or `world lines', of the light signal. Since nothing can travel faster than light, the cones represent the universe that is causally connected to the present through information carried by light signals. The cone below represents the past and the one above, the future.

Of course, the design can have many other creative interpretations as well: just the colours of light, focal length, the inverse-square law, refraction of light through a lens, warped space-time or a wormhole (of time travel) in Einstein's theory of gravitation (general relativity).

At the base is written `U.N. International Year of Physics', acknowledging the U.N. General Assembly Resolution on the WYP.