Abstract

“Physics — a key to development” was the theme of the XXXVIII Annual Conference of the Finnish Physical Society or the “Physics Days” that took place the 18–20 March 2004 at Oulu. The theme was chosen to emphasize the key role of physics in societal developments. Though this mainly points to technology behind the welfare, we should not forget the fundamental role of physics as the base of other fields of science and our worldview.

Nearly four hundred participants were attracted by the conventional program and social events. The nine invited speakers of the plenary lectures covered fairly representative part of physics, and in particular, the spectroscopic and other physics activities at the host university. Rest of the 315 presentations, in 15 parallel sessions of short talks and two poster sessions, covered a wider range of physics research activities in Finland. This offered the young physicists a possibility to present their latest work and achievements.

The Proceedings contain one page long abstracts for all presentations, talks and posters, of the conference. For this electronic version, the email-addresses of the contributors have been edited away from the abstracts. Otherwise the content is similar to the the printed version.