CERN webcast inaugurates Italian project
A major webcast on 3 May linked CERN and high schools all over Italy on the occasion of an extended visit to the laboratory of Letizia Moratti, the Italian minister of education, universities and research. The webcast was to inaugurate the Extreme Energy Events project, which Moratti has approved for the promotion of scientific culture in Italian schools.
On stage in front of the camera Moratti was joined by the initiator of the project, Antonino Zichichi from Bologna University. The audience in the LAA building at CERN included an important delegation from Moratti's ministry, the Italian ambassador, collaborators from Bologna University and students from the Italian School of Lausanne. Receiving the broadcast via the Web were students and teachers in hundreds of Italian high schools.
During the webcast Zichichi presented the first module of the multigap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) constructed in the LAA laboratory at CERN. In a new approach that is designed to bring school students into contact with modern scientific tools, MRPCs will be constructed by students in the participating schools and then networked together to measure and analyse cosmic-ray data across Italy. Luisa Cifarelli, a professor at Bologna University, discussed the physics behind the project and explained the origin of cosmic rays, presenting simulation data of extreme-energy cosmic-ray showers over Italy. The ALICE team from Bologna then demonstrated the different steps in the construction of MRPCs, readout electronics assembly and cosmic-ray tests that were done in the LAA laboratory and the Physics Institute at Bologna University.
Zichichi also presented the basic frontier research activities being prepared at CERN for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which seek answers to the questions raised in our current understanding of subnuclear physics. Lucio Rossi, head of the LHC magnet group at CERN, described the activities in the magnet assembly hall and reminded the audience of the long history of the development of superconducting magnets, which was initiated in Italy by Zichichi.
Following the webcast Moratti held discussions with the CERN directorate, and visited the LHC magnet assembly hall, the cavern for the ALICE detector and the CERN Computer Centre, where Fabrizio Gagliardi and his team presented their activities on the Grid project.
Dutch schools project wins innovation award
A Dutch project that involves teams of high-school students studying ultra-high-energy cosmic rays has won the 2004 Altran Foundation for Innovation award. The award will provide the High School Project for Astrophysical Research with Cosmics (HiSPARC) with technology consultancy worth €1 million from Altran, the French consulting group.
HiSPARC began in 2000 in Nijmegen, and has since evolved to become a nationwide network of cosmic-ray detectors, with more than 35 schools involved, clustered on five universities. The project is also supported by the Dutch high-energy physics institute NIKHEF. Students in the participating schools build the detection system (scintillating plastic tied to a digital oscillator and a global positioning system for time stamping) to take local measurements and then combine their results to look for cosmic-ray showers over areas of 10 km2.
Under the award scheme, Altran offers one year of technological advice in the form of personalized assistance in areas such as project management, cost optimization and communication. For the 2004 award Altran chose the theme "Discovering, understanding and enjoying science through innovation".
British researchers receive awards for Grid development
On 2 June two of the British researchers who have been at the forefront of Grid computing at CERN received achievement awards in recognition of the UK's contribution to next-generation computing. Andy McNab of the University of Manchester was presented with a CERN-UK award for outstanding achievement in Grid development, and Frank Harris of Oxford University was given a CERN-UK lifetime achievement award.
McNab has made key contributions to developing a robust security model for the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid, while Harris has played an important role in the progress of online computing while based at CERN for the past 15 years.
The awards were presented by CERN's director-general, Robert Aymar, during a meeting of GridPP, a collaboration of particle physicists and computing scientists from the UK and CERN.
Wolf prize goes to particle physicists
The 2004 Wolf Prize in Physics has been awarded to three important figures in modern particle physics: Robert Brout of ULB, Brussels, François Englert, now at Tel Aviv University and professor emiritus at ULB, and Peter Higgs, professor emiritus at Edinburgh University. The Wolf Foundation rewarded the trio for "pioneering work that has led to the insight of mass generation whenever a local gauge symmetry is realized asymmetrically in the world of subatomic particles". They shared the prize of $100,000, which was awarded at a ceremony at the Knesset in Jerusalem on 9 May.
Letters
CERN Courier welcomes letters from readers. Please e-mail cern.courier@cern.ch. We reserve the right to edit letters.
Back in 1963
It was with interest that I read the 1963 archive page regarding the construction of a new synchrocyclotron based on one already in operation at CERN (CERN Courier June 2004 p11). I did not know the machine once in operation here in the United States was based on CERN technology. The "Space Radiation Effects Laboratory" is long since gone, but the building constructed to house the synchrocyclotron is now the site of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility's "Test Lab". The building is home to the Institute for SRF Science and Technology, where superconducting components for Jefferson Lab's accelerator were, and still are, designed and assembled. CERN Courier's short article brought this site full circle and took me back in time. Thank you.
Linda Ware, public affairs manager, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
Meetings
The Spanish School on High Energy Physics, TAE04, is to be held in Santiago de Compostela from 13-24 September. TAE (Taller de Altas Energías) is an annual workshop aimed at first and second year graduate students who are starting research in experimental or theoretical high-energy physics. This year's school will cover basic material on astroparticle physics, experimental techniques, quantum field theory and physics beyond the Standard Model. For further information, see http://www-fp.usc.es/tae.
The High Energy Physics Group of The Institute of Physics is holding a meeting to celebrate The 50th birthday of CERN on 29 September at The Institute of Physics in London. There will be presentations on CERN - past, present and future. For further details, see http://groups.iop.org/HE/cern.html, or contact Roger Barlow at roger@hep.man.ac.uk.
RICH2003, the 5th International Workshop on Ring Imaging Cherenkov Counters, is to be held in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, on 30 November to 5 December. Dedicated to the centenary of Pavel Cherenkov's birth, the conference will consist of topical sessions on various aspects of the use of RICH and related detectors. The sessions will present technical details and physics results. For further details, see www.ifisica.uaslp.mx/rich2004.