Scope

The primary mission of European Journal of Physics is to assist in maintaining and improving the standard of taught physics in universities and other institutes of higher education.

Authors submitting articles must indicate the usefulness of their material to physics education and make clear the level of readership (undergraduate, graduate, general physicist, or specialist) for which the article is intended. Submissions that omit this information or which, in the publisher's opinion, do not contribute to the above mission will not be considered for publication.

To this end, we welcome articles that provide original insights and aim to enhance learning in one or more areas of physics. They should normally include at least one of the following:

  • Explanations of how contemporary research can inform the understanding of physics at university level: for example a survey of a research field at a level accessible to students, explaining how it illustrates some general principles.
  • Original insights into the derivation of results. These should be of some general interest, consisting of more than corrections to textbooks.
  • Descriptions of novel laboratory exercises illustrating new techniques of general interest. Those based on relatively inexpensive equipment are specially welcome.
  • Articles of a scholarly or reflective nature that are aimed to be of interest to, and at a level appropriate for, physics students or recent graduates.
  • Descriptions of successful and original student projects, experimental, theoretical or computational.
  • Discussions of the history, philosophy and epistemology of physics, at a level accessible to physics students and teachers.
  • Reports of new developments in physics curricula and the techniques for teaching physics.
  • Physics education research—we welcome articles in this section that highlight the current state of the field of physics education research, report on progress in key areas and address key issues.

The electronic version of European Journal of Physics can include extra material as multimedia attachments. Any electronically stored material can be attached, so you can share full resources with the other physics teachers and include exciting illustrations with submissions. Unfortunately we no longer allow the use of any music at all in supplementary material.

Reviews

Review articles in EJP are flexible length systematic, evidence-based reviews of important and topical issues and are intended to summarize accepted practice and report on recent progress in selected areas. A topical review should discuss the current state of research in the field, and also include a general overview and an introduction with enough basic information to make the article interesting and informative. They do not have to be fully comprehensive. Reviews in EJP should usually be 8000–10 000 words long and authors are encouraged to take full advantage of the electronic medium to include colour, video, audio or other innovative presentation formats and links to more extensive tutorial information or data. However, use of such presentation techniques is not a criterion for article acceptance, and should only serve to effectively communicate the physics.

The journal is not a vehicle for the publication of original research unless it fulfills one or more of the above criteria.

Manuscripts must be clearly written, technically sound and include references to the relevant literature. Contributions can be in the form of papers of typical length of not more than 4000 words. Comments on articles previously published in the Journal are also acceptable. However, authors submitting such a comment will be asked to correspond directly with the author(s) of the original article in the hope that they can agree a text to appear under both names. If this proves impossible, a separate Comment and Reply will be considered. In either case, Comments will be subject to the normal refereeing procedures. The Journal will from time to time solicit reviews of books relevant to its subject remit.

Papers are published under the following subject sections:

  • Mechanics
  • Thermal physics, thermodynamics and statistical physics
  • Electrodynamics
  • Optics and quantum optics
  • Quantum physics and quantum mechanics
  • Solid state physics and materials
  • Relativity, cosmology, astronomy and astrophysics
  • Physics education research
  • Multidisciplinary and miscellaneous

European Journal of Physics is a journal of the European Physical Society.