On 25 January Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, visited CERN with five government ministers, Parvez Butt, president of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and an eminent former president of the Commission, Ishfaq Ahmad, who pioneered co-operation with CERN. The visit included a tour of CMS, to which Pakistan is making a substantial contribution, and an opportunity for Musharraf to address CERN’s Pakistani scientists.
During the visit, Butt and CERN’s director-general, Robert Aymar, signed an addendum to the 2003 Protocol Agreement covering the supply of additional equipment for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). They also signed a letter of intent aimed at strengthening scientific and technical co-operation between CERN and Pakistan. The document envisages an extension of the existing partnership not only in new accelerators, detectors and information technologies, but also in educating and training scientists and technical experts.
In 1994 CERN and Pakistan signed their first formal collaboration agreement, and in 1997 a protocol was signed for the supply of eight huge steel feet for the CMS magnet yoke. This was supplemented in 2000 by a memorandum of understanding for the production of 288 muon chambers and electronic components for the experiment. Three years later, the co-operation gained new impetus with a new protocol of understanding with CERN.
There are currently 75 Pakistani physicists and engineers taking part in three major CERN projects: CMS, ATLAS and the development of the Computing Grid for the LHC (LCG).
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) was established through a convention signed in Moscow on 26 March 1956 by representatives from 11 founder states. Their aim was to unite their scientific and material potential in order to study the fundamental properties of matter. Nearly a year later, on 1 February 1957 the institute was registered with the United Nations.
JINR is situated in Dubna, 120 km north-east of Moscow on the Volga River. It is known today around the world as a centre where fundamental research, both theoretical and experimental, is successfully integrated with new technology, the latest techniques and university education.
The main fields of JINR’s research are theoretical and experimental studies in elementary-particle physics, nuclear physics, and condensed-matter physics. The research programme is aimed at obtaining highly significant scientific results. In nuclear physics alone, around half the 80 or so discoveries in the former USSR were made at JINR. The decision of the General Assembly of the International Committee of Pure and Applied Chemistry to award the name Dubnium to element 105 of the periodic table stands in recognition of the achievements of the institute’s researchers and their contribution to modern physics and chemistry.
At present JINR has 18 member states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Germany, Hungary, Italy and the Republic of South Africa also participate in JINR’s activities through bilateral agreements signed at governmental level.
JINR is a genuinely international institution. Its supreme governing body is the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of all 18 member states. The research policy is determined by the Scientific Council, which consists of eminent scientists from the member states, as well as well known researchers from France, Germany, Italy, the US and CERN.
From firm foundations
Since its beginnings, JINR has instigated a wide range of research, and scientific personnel of the highest qualification have been trained for the institute’s member states. Among them are presidents of national academies of sciences, along with leaders of large nuclear centres and universities in many of the member states.
Before JINR’s foundation, the Institute of Nuclear Problems (INP) of the USSR Academy of Sciences had been set up in the late 1940s in the town that was to grow into modern Dubna. The INP had launched a broad research programme on fundamental and applied studies of the properties of nuclear matter using what was at the time the largest charged-particle accelerator – the synchrocyclotron. At the same time, the Electrophysical Laboratory (EPhLAN) of the USSR Academy of Sciences was set up at the same place and it was here that research to develop a new accelerator – the 10 GeV Synchrophasotron (figure 2) – was conducted under the guidance of Vladimir Veksler. When this machine started up in 1957 it was the world’s highest-energy accelerator.
By the mid-1950s the world had come to realize that nuclear science could not be kept locked in secret laboratories and that only broad-based international co-operation could ensure progress in this fundamental realm of human knowledge and in the peaceful utilization of atomic energy. In 1954 CERN was established to unite the efforts of Western European countries in studying the fundamental properties of the microcosm. About the same time, under the stimulus of the government of the USSR, the countries then belonging to the socialist world took a decision to establish JINR, based on the INP and EPhLAN.
After the agreement for the foundation of JINR was signed, specialists from all the member states came to Dubna. As the town took on its international flavour, research began in many fields of nuclear physics of interest to the scientific centres of the member states. The first director of JINR was Dmitri Blokhintsev (figure 3), who had just successfully developed the world’s first atomic power station in Obninsk. Marian Danysz from Poland and Vaclav Votruba from Czechoslovakia became vice-directors, and together this first directorate led the institute through one of the most difficult and crucial periods in its life – the time of its establishment.
The history of JINR is associated with many outstanding scientists including Nikolai Bogoliubov, Igor Kurchatov, Igor Tamm, and Lajos Janossy. Many others were involved in developing the institute and its main scientific branches, such as Alexander Baldin, Vladimir Veksler, Moissey Markov, Bruno Pontecorvo and Georgi Flerov to name but a few.
Since JINR’s founding, nuclear research has been marked by important discoveries and crucial changes. In 1961 the JINR Prizes were established, and a group of physicists led by Veksler and Wang Ganchang from China were awarded the first such prize for their discovery of the antisigma-minus-hyperon. No-one doubted at the time that this particle was elementary, but a few years later, this hyperon, the proton, neutron, pion and other hadrons had lost their elementary quality. They turned out to be complex particles consisting of quarks and antiquarks, which have in turn gained the “right” to be called elementary. Physicists at Dubna have clarified to a great extent the concept of the quark structure of hadrons. Among their latest research are the ideas of colour quarks, the hadron quark model known as “the Dubna bag”, and so on.
In addition to this mainstream progress over the past 50 years, there has been another, quite opposite theme – research that was far ahead of its time. Fifty years ago, soon after JINR had been established, Bruno Pontecorvo suggested the existence of neutrino oscillations. It took scientists dozens of years to find experimental confirmation of such oscillations, which are now a central issue of the physics of weak interactions. At the 97th session of the JINR Scientific Council in January 2005 Art MacDonald, director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) received the Pontecorvo Prize for the discovery in SNO of evidence for solar neutrino oscillations.
JINR publications are distributed in more than 50 countries. About 600 preprints and communications a year are issued
The modern JINR comprises eight laboratories, each being comparable with a large institute in the scale and scope of investigations performed. It employs more than 6000 people, including more than 1000 scientists, including full members and corresponding members of national academies of sciences, more than 260 Doctors of Science and 630 Candidates of Science, and around 2000 engineers and technicians. The current director, as from 1 January 2006, is Alexei Sissakian, with Mikhail Itkis and Richard Lednick as vice-directors.
The institute possesses a remarkable choice of experimental facilities for physics: Russia’s only superconducting accelerator of nuclei and heavy ions, the Nuclotron (figure 4); the U-400 and U-400M cyclotrons with record beam parameters for experiments on the synthesis of heavy and exotic nuclei; the unique neutron pulsed reactor IBR-2; and the Synchrophasotron proton accelerator which is used for radiation therapy. JINR also has powerful and fast computing facilities, which are integrated into the worldwide computer network.
JINR has established excellent conditions for training talented young specialists. Its University Centre organizes research experience annually at the institute’s facilities for students from higher-education institutions in Russia and other countries. In 1994, on the initiative of the JINR directorate, and with the active support of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the town of Dubna and the Moscow region administrations established the Dubna International University of Nature, Society and Man. There are dozens of JINR staff members – all renowned scientists – among the university staff. The university educational base is actively developed on the territory of JINR, so that Dubna has become a town of students as well as physicists.
Each year JINR submits more than 500 scientific papers and reports written by about 3000 authors to the editorial offices of many journals and organizing committees. JINR publications are distributed in more than 50 countries. About 600 preprints and communications a year are issued. JINR publishes the journals Physics of elementary particles and atomic nucleus, Physics of elementary particles and atomic nucleus letters, the annual report on JINR activities, the information bulletin JINR News, as well as proceedings of conferences, schools and meetings organized by the institute.
For 50 years JINR has been a bridge between the West and the East promoting the development of broad international scientific and technical co-operation. It collaborates with nearly 700 research centres and universities in 60 countries. In Russia alone – the largest JINR partner – co-operation is conducted with 150 research centres, universities, industrial enterprises and companies from 40 Russian cities.
A clear example is JINR’s co-operation with CERN, which facilitates decisions about many theoretical and experimental efforts in high-energy physics. JINR is currently participating in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, taking part in development and construction of parts of the ATLAS, CMS and ALICE detector systems and in the LHC itself. Thanks to its supercomputer centre, JINR is also participating in the development of the Russian regional centre for processing experimental data from the LHC, which is planned as part of the LHC Computing Grid project.
More than 200 scientific centres, universities and enterprises from 10 countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) participate in implementing JINR’s scientific programme. The institute may be regarded as a joint scientific centre for the CIS countries, functioning successfully on the international scale. The large and positive experience accumulated at JINR for mutually profitable scientific and technical co-operation on the international scale could provide a discussion topic for a meeting of CIS leaders in Dubna in the context of a summit of the CIS member states.
JINR also maintains mutually beneficial contacts with the IAEA, UNESCO, the European Physical Society and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Each year more than 1000 scientists from JINR’s partner states visit Dubna, and the institute grants scholarships to physicists from developing countries. JINR’s own researchers are frequent participants at many national and international scientific conferences. In its turn, the institute annually holds up to 10 large conferences and more than 30 international workshops, as well as traditional schools for young scientists.
In the late 1990s, the concept of JINR as a large multidisciplinary international centre for fundamental research in nuclear physics and related fields of science and technology was adopted. The aim is to transfer the results of highly technological research at JINR to applications in industrial, medical and other technical areas, so as to provide additional sources of financing for fundamental research and the organization of new working places for specialists who are involved with these broader topics at the institute. There are also plans for assisting JINR member states to develop new facilities and scientific programmes, such as a cyclotron centre in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic and the DC-60 cyclotron in Astana in Kazakhstan.
JINR has thus entered the 21st century as a large multidisciplinary international scientific centre where fundamental research is conducted in fields related to the structure of matter. It is now integrated with the development and application of new science-intensive technology and the development of university education in related fields of science and it looks forward to its next half century.
Le Globe de la Science et de l’Innovation, grand bâtiment sphérique en bois érigé aux portes du site principal du CERN, à Meyrin en Suisse, est devenu un emblème pour le laboratoire. Il a ouvert ses portes l’an passé pour faire partager au grand public, à la population locale et aux partenaires du CERN, les travaux scientifiques du Laboratoire et les technologies qui y sont développées.
Avec 27 mètres de hauteur et 40 mètres de diamètre, le Globe est à peu près de la taille de la chapelle Sixtine à Rome. Repère visuel de jour comme de nuit, il se démarque dans le paysage des vignobles genevois. Symbole du développement durable par sa structure en bois, le Globe porte un message sur la science, la physique des particules, les technologies de pointe et leurs applications dans la vie quotidienne.
Le bois de l’enveloppe extérieure du Globe de la Science et de l’Innovation a d’abord été utilisé pour le Pavillon suisse à l’exposition universelle de Hanovre en 2000, conçu par l’architecte Peter Zumthor. Ces planches, symbolisant le développement durable, ont ensuite été transformées en secteurs sphériques à claire-voie pour composer l’enveloppe extérieure du bâtiment actuel, conçu par l’ingénieur Thomas Büchi (Charpente Concept) et l’architecte Hervé Dessimoz (Groupe H) pour l’exposition nationale suisse Expo.02.
Le bâtiment, alors nommé Palais de l’Equilibre, était dédié au développement durable. Durant les six mois de l’exposition, il a accueilli 1.9 millions de visiteurs. Après cette exposition, le Gouvernement suisse a réalisé un appel à propositions pour une réutilisation durable de l’édifice. Le CERN a proposé d’en faire un lieu de partage de la culture scientifique, technique et industrielle pour le grand public, ainsi qu’un espace d’échanges sur les technologies innovantes en partenariat avec des entreprises privées et des institutions publiques. La proposition a été retenue et le bâtiment a été offert en 2003 par la Confédération Suisse pour le 50e anniversaire du CERN célébré l’année suivante.
Reconstruit sur le site actuel en 2004, le Globe a été utilisé pour la première fois le 19 octobre 2004 à l’occasion des célébrations officielles du 50e anniversaire du CERN. Des travaux complémentaires de sécurité, d’isolation thermique et phonique ont complété l’édifice.
Un lieu d’échanges entre science et société
Après la période d’inauguration à la fin 2004, le Globe de la science et de l’innovation a été réellement ouvert au public le 16 septembre 2005, avec une exposition temporaire en hommage au prix Nobel de physique du CERN Georges Charpak. L’exposition “Einstein, 100 ans après”, inaugurée à l’occasion de la fête de la science 2005, y a ensuite été installée dans le cadre de l’Année mondiale de la physique. Le Globe fonctionne ainsi actuellement avec des activités temporaires qui associent des expositions, des présentations ou des événements. Tourné vers tous les publics visitant le CERN, le bâtiment devient un élément clé de la stratégie de communication du laboratoire.
Dans la perspective de 2007 et de la mise en service du Grand collisionneur de hadrons (LHC), l’accueil des 25,000 visiteurs annuels doit être repensé. Ils peuvent aujourd’hui accéder aux expériences souterraines du LHC qui leur montre le gigantisme des installations nécessaires pour traquer les particules invisibles. L’exposition Microcosm vient compléter l’information de ceux qui le souhaitent. A partir de 2007, les installations du LHC étant en service, il ne sera plus possible d’organiser ces visites souterraines. L’offre pour les visiteurs doit donc évoluer.
La richesse et la diversité des installations du CERN permettront d’organiser des itinéraires thématiques offrant aux visiteurs la possibilité de choisir en fonction de leurs centres d’intérêt: physique, technologie, machines, histoire…. En surface, des expositions sur site permettront de comprendre la physique en train de se faire en sous-sol et de découvrir les techniques associées. Mais les visiteurs qui souhaiteront en savoir plus, appréhender les enjeux, pénétrer dans le monde des particules devront avoir la possibilité d’explorer à leur rythme et plus en détail l’univers du CERN. Le Globe de la science et de l’innovation jouera alors un rôle important dans ce renouvellement de l’offre aux visiteurs.
Un outil au service de tous
Pour répondre à cette demande, le bâtiment nécessite des équipements complémentaires. Les différentes fonctions facilitant l’accueil du public ont été rassemblées dans un projet de structure périphérique sur 180 degrés, appelée bâtiment couronne. Le développement de ce bâtiment complémentaire, la transformation du bâtiment hébergeant l’exposition Microcosm, la redéfinition des visites, l’étude d’une future liaison entre les deux côtés de la route nécessitent d’importants moyens. En 2007, une exposition permanente sera inaugurée au rez-de-chaussée du Globe. La physique des particules y sera mise à la portée de tous. Et les technologies innovantes inventées au CERN y occuperont une place importante pour permettre aux visiteurs de comprendre comment le physique du 21e siècle s’inscrit dans leur vie quotidienne.
Le Globe accueille actuellement des expositions temporaires au niveau supérieur. C’est sur ce même étage très spectaculaire (une coupole de plus de 12 mètres de haut!) que peuvent être organisés des événements en collaboration avec les Etats membres de l’organisation, les collectivités locales, les industriels et le grand public.
Expositions temporaires, conférences, animations, rencontres, débats résonneront dans le Globe comme autant de démarches pour développer des liens entre science, industrie et société. Les enjeux sont multiples: augmenter le goût des jeunes pour les sciences, mieux éduquer les futurs scientifiques, informer et former les enseignants, permettre aux citoyens européens de participer à l’évolution des connaissances, comprendre les enjeux scientifiques de notre époque, favoriser les passerelles entre science et industrie, participer au rapprochement des pays, associer le plaisir de la découverte avec le partage des connaissances.
En mettant en place un tel lieu d’échange, le CERN a évidemment aiguisé l’intérêt de nombreux musées et centres de culture scientifique. Le laboratoire devient dans ce domaine un important partenaire jouant le rôle de centre de ressources à la disposition de tous.
Un partenariat exemplaire
Le 26 septembre 2005, le Globe a hébergé un événement de l’Institut international des ingénieurs en électrotechnique et électronique (IEEE). Cette manifestation “IEEE milestone event” a permis de rendre à la fois hommage au CERN pour ses inventions en matière de détecteurs et à l’un de ses brillants physiciens, le prix Nobel Georges Charpak. Ce type d’événement n’est possible qu’avec un réseau de partenaires en l’occurrence ici l’IEEE, la plus grande association au monde pour l’avancement des technologies. Nos remerciements vont à sont Président W Cleon Anderson et à l’ensemble des contributeurs pour leur aide, en particulier le principal partenaire Walter LeCroy.
Afin de développer autour du Globe un réseau pour soutenir son action, le CERN a souhaité créer des outils de dialogue.
Une lettre électronique destinée à toute personne membre du personnel CERN ou non. Le but de cette lettre baptisée Globe-info est de diffuser les informations relatives aux activités éducatives, culturelles, scientifiques, techniques et industrielles du CERN. Ces informations concernent le public le plus large. La lettre annonce les conférences, les expositions, les ateliers, les événements, les visites, les pièces de théâtre, les journées portes ouvertes, les nouveaux documents, les informations scientifiques, techniques ou industrielles.
Nous avons également proposé de créer “Les Amis de la Science et de l’Innovation”, un regroupement destiné aux personnes physiques souhaitant soutenir les buts du CERN au travers des actions grand public mises en place.
Enfin, un Club des partenaires du CERN pour la Science et l’Innovation a été mis en place. Ce club réunit à la fois des fondations, des collectivités, des partenaires industriels et des donateurs acquittant une contribution de membre. Pour être membre du Club, les sociétés doivent impérativement adhérer aux objectifs et valeurs du CERN. Le Club permet aux collectivités et aux industriels d’être partenaires des actions vers tous les publics, tels que expositions, conférences, spectacles. De nouveaux projets d’expositions, de bâtiments ou d’éléments scénographiques spectaculaires pourront être réalisés grâce aux aides fournies dans le cadre de ce Club privilégié. Par exemple, en complément du Globe, le bâtiment couronne pourrait permettre dans quelques années de mieux accueillir les visiteurs qui pour une heure ou une demi-journée auront la possibilité d’explorer, visiter, comprendre, échanger, discuter avec les scientifiques et guides du CERN.
Le Club des Partenaires du CERN pour la Science et l’Innovation a pour principal objectif de favoriser la diffusion, auprès des publics cibles, des informations sur la science, la technologie, les débouchés industriels et les grands sujets de débat et d’actualité. En tant qu’organisation internationale, le CERN est habilité à recevoir des dons. Un document est délivré afin que les contributeurs puissent faire valoir leur don auprès des services fiscaux.
Un programme de démarrage éclectique
Ouvert au public depuis peu, le Globe a déjà accueilli une exposition en hommage à Georges Charpak, une exposition sur “Einstein, 100 après”, la création en avant-première de l’opéra scientifique Kosmos, des événements, des conférences, des ateliers, des animations et même deux pièces de théâtre (“Signé Jules Verne” de la compagnie genevoise Mimescope et “Einstein au Pays des neutrinos” du physicien François Vannucci).
En février et mars 2006, le Globe propose l’exposition Einstein prolongée, un atelier de physique pour les tout-petits et une pièce de théâtre loufoque et poétique autour des mathématiques, “Mad Math”. Suivront une exposition artistique “Utopies Urbaines” organisé avec la commune de Meyrin et une exposition et des animations autour de l’astrophysique.
Par toutes ces actions, le Globe accompagne les quatre missions fondamentales du CERN:
Apporter des réponses aux questions sur l’Univers
Repousser les frontières de la technologie
Former les scientifiques de demain
Rapprocher les pays grâce à la science
Dans les années à venir, le CERN va se projeter dans un futur très stimulant en démarrant des machines innovantes, en produisant une nouvelle physique et en appuyant sa communication sur ce bâtiment emblématique: le Globe de la Science et de l’Innovation.
by E Walter Kellermann, Stamford House Publishing. Paperback ISBN 1904985092, £8.99.
The story of the flight of Jewish physicists from the Nazis and their allies in the 1930s is well known, told usually in the context of major players, such as Albert Einstein, or Enrico Fermi. So it is interesting to read of how the events of that time touched someone less well known, but who nevertheless went on to a full and rewarding career in physics. In 1937 Walter Kellermann fled to the UK, where he was to establish his career in physics, in particular in cosmic rays. This book is his story.
After completing his schooling in Berlin, Kellermann left his native Germany in 1933, as the Nazis were making it impossible for Jews to enter university there. To continue his studies, he went to Austria – not the best choice – where he had relatives in Vienna. University regulations there were flexible and after only four semesters he was accepted as a physics-research student with Karl Przibram. Then with German occupation imminent and a DPhil to his credit, he fled to Britain in October 1937, and with some ingenuity secured work at Edinburgh University under Max Born. It was there that he made an important contribution to solid-state physics, calculating for the first time the phonon spectrum.
With the outbreak of war in 1939, Kellermann found himself interned, like many others, despite his refugee status, and was even sent to Canada on a dangerous voyage, during which the internees were kept in a barbed-wire enclosure. Fortunately, he was soon released, and joined the teaching staff at Southampton University.
After the war, Kellermann moved to join Patrick Blackett’s group at Manchester, to work on cosmic rays. This was to become his field for the rest of his academic life, in particular from 1949 onwards at Leeds University. At Leeds, he was one of the main instigators of the extensive air-shower detector array at Haverah Park, the forerunner of major modern projects such as the Pierre Auger Observatory. In the early 1970s his “15 minutes of fame” came when Kellermann’s group observed a bump in the hadron energy spectrum in cosmic rays, detected in an innovative hadron calorimeter. This could have been due to a new particle, which the researchers dubbed the Mandela. Sadly, the bump was eventually found to be due to a burned-out connection in the detector’s custom-built computer. Soon afterwards, Kellermann reached retirement age, but went on to a second career in science policy in Britain, the subject of the final chapter.
Kellermann’s account makes fascinating reading, describing the aspirations and frustrations of a physicist who was not centre stage, but moved among a cast of famous names. These included not only Born and Blackett, but also Klaus Fuchs, best known as a spy. The book also presents a revealing view of the British university system, with some alarming examples of racism, in particular in the 1930s and 1940s when departments were keen to keep down the number of refugees.
by Claus Grupen, Springer. Hardback ISBN 3540253122, €37.40, (£27, $59.95).
Claus Grupen provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the main ideas and terminology of the study of elementary particles originating from astrophysical objects. In fact, as is evident from the historical introduction, astroparticle physics reaches beyond elementary particles and includes gamma radiation, X-rays, gravitational waves, and extensions of the current Standard Model.
The style and presentation of the material make the book accessible to a broad audience with a basic knowledge of mathematics and physics. A good selection of simple exercises with solutions increases its pedagogical value and makes it suitable as a textbook for an undergraduate course. Non-specialists who want to follow the main issues of current research in the field or to have a general overview before more advanced readings can also benefit from Grupen’s book.
A distinguishing feature of the book is the use of relatively simple models directly tied, where possible, to experimental data; these illustrate physical mechanisms or problems without unnecessary details. The main physical motivations for a theory are introduced, its experimental consequences discussed together with the current status of the key parameters and the expected future developments. Both the pedagogical nature and the emphasis on the experimental basis of models are signalled by a chapter dedicated to particle and radiation detectors and, especially, by the many instructive figures and diagrams that illustrate data and their theoretical interpretations.
A good third of the book deals with cosmic rays, our main experimental window on the universe. Grupen presents the astronomy of neutrinos, gammas and X-rays, and discusses and reviews the basic mechanisms for particle acceleration and production, and important topics such as extended atmospheric showers initiated by the highest-energy cosmic rays or gamma-ray bursts. This part constitutes the foundation of astroparticle physics.
The next largest part of the book, about one quarter, is devoted to the thermal history of the early universe, including an extensive description of Big Bang nucleosynthesis.
Introductions to standard cosmology and to basic statistical mechanics are included. In addition there is a concise description of the important information carried by the cosmic microwave background radiation – in particular, the bearings of the latest measurements of the radiation’s angular anisotropy on key cosmological parameters, such as the total energy density, the baryon-to-photon ratio and the Hubble constant.
Before the stimulating overview of some of the open problems and perspectives of the field the author reserves two chapters for inflation and dark matter. These fundamental concepts in modern astrophysics not only answer specific experimental and theoretical questions (rotational curves of galaxies, monopoles, flatness, etc), but raise new ones and stimulate experimental tests.
Eighty representatives from several major physics publishers, European particle-physics laboratories, learned societies, funding agencies and authors from Europe and the US met at CERN on 7-8 December 2005 for the first discussions on promoting open-access publishing. One of the results was the formation of a task-force mandated to bring action by 2007.
Open access is currently a hot topic at universities, publishing houses and governments, as digitized documentation and electronic networking become more mainstream. The particle-physics community has already implemented one of the possible ways for open access to work, whereby institutional libraries, such as CERN’s, make their own information available on the Internet. The other approach is to work directly with scientific publishers to develop open access to the journals.
The aim of open access is to bring greater benefit to society by allowing electronic access to journals to be free to the public, while being paid for by the authors. The time-honoured practice consisted of publishers financing journals through reader subscriptions and ensuring quality by peer review; however, this model favours the wealthier universities and institutions as they can afford the expensive costs of the journals. The challenge for open access is to maintain the quality guaranteed by academic publishers, while broadening access to the information.
The creation of an open-access task-force comes at a crucial time for the world particle-physics community as 2007 brings the launch of a new major facility, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
On 10 November, the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) began a major two-day celebration at its headquarters in Malargüe, Argentina, to mark the progress of the observatory and the presentation of the first physics results at the International Cosmic Ray Conference in the summer 2005. One of several experiments connecting particle astrophysics and accelerator-based physics, the PAO studies extensive air showers created by primary cosmic rays with energies greater than 1018 eV. With more than 1000 of the 1600 surface detectors and 18 of the 24 fluorescence detectors currently installed and operating, the observatory will eventually cover 3000 km2 of the expansive Pampa Amarilla.
Over 175 visitors from the 15 collaborating countries attended the celebration, with guests including heads of collaborating institutions, representatives from supporting funding agencies, delegates from Argentinian embassies, local and provincial authorities, plus press and media teams. On the first day, experiment heads Jim Cronin, Alan Watson and Paul Mantsch presented the history and status of the observatory to the assembled visitors in Malargüe’s Convention Center. This was followed by a ceremony on the Auger campus to unveil a commemorative monument made of glass and stone. Ceremony speakers included Malargüe’s mayor and the governor of Mendoza Province. Guests then retired to a traditional asado that featured local cuisine and entertainment by folk musicians and tango dancers. On the second day, attendees toured the vast observatory site, including surface detectors on the pampa and one of the remote fluorescence detector buildings.
As part of the celebration, the collaboration sponsored a science fair in the observatory’s Assembly Building, organized by four local science teachers for teachers and students from high schools in Mendoza Province. Twenty-nine school groups, many travelling long distances to reach Malargüe, presented research projects on topics in physics, chemistry or technology. A team of PAO physicists judged the displays and awarded prizes to the most outstanding young scientists. In March 2006, the opening of a new high school in Malargüe is anticipated, partial funding for which was secured by Cronin from the Grainger Foundation in the US.
by Lisa Randall, Allen Lane, Penguin Books. Hardback ISBN 0713996994, £25.
(In the US, HarperCollins, ISBN 0060531088, $27.95.)
They say you should never judge a book by its cover, which is advice worth considering if you’re thinking of buying Lisa Randall’s Warped Passages. The violent pink with the title scrawled graffiti-like across it (in the Penguin edition) makes the book jump off the shelf, screaming “I’m no ordinary popular-science book.” Don’t be put off. Randall does break the mould, but not by filling the book with graffiti. She delivers a bold journey from the origins of 20th-century science to the frontiers of today’s theoretical physics. It’s bold because, despite her protestations that the book is about physics and not personalities, it turns out to be a very personal journey in the company of one of the field’s most cited practitioners.
This is most true at the beginning, where Randall tells us a little about who she is and why she has devoted her life’s work to the science of extra dimensions. She begins with the words: “When I was a young girl, I loved the play and intellectual games in math problems or in books like Alice in Wonderland.” Thereafter, she affords us a glimpse of who she is through her choice of musical snippets at the beginning of each chapter, and the Alice-inspired story of Ike, Athena and Dieter, which unfolds throughout the book, one episode per chapter. The result is that the reader gets not only a competent review of a difficult subject, but also a feeling for what drives someone at the cutting edge of science.
I have to confess that I read the story of Ike, Athena and Dieter from cover to cover before embarking on the book proper, and having done so would recommend that course of action. Should physics cease to be a fruitful career, Randall could perhaps turn her hand to fiction. Coupled with the What to Remember and What’s New sections at the end of each chapter, the story gives a pretty good overview of what the book is about.
The personality that emerges as the book progresses is not the kind of physicist who would be lost for words at a party if asked what she does. As well as being, according to her publisher, the world’s most influential physicist thanks to the citations-index-topping paper she published with Raman Sundrum in 1999, Randall is also a woman with a life. She has broad interests, she is cultured and she climbs mountains in her spare time. In short, she’s the sort of role model science needs.
Clearly conscious of the “no equations” school of science communication, she tries early on to put the reader at ease by promising that the descriptions will never be too complicated. Inevitably she cannot hold this promise throughout, and there are places where even the most dedicated amateur scientists will be baffled, but that is more the nature of the subject than the author. If Niels Bohr thought that quantum mechanics was profoundly shocking, what would he have made of hidden dimensions? In places, Randall goes so far to try to make things easy that the tone verges on the patronizing, and in others, she hides difficult stuff in a “math notes” section at the end of the book. On balance, however, she has done a good job of making a difficult subject accessible.
Bohr is on record as saying to a young physicist, “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.” Could the same be true of extra dimensions? If you do not already have an opinion, this book will certainly help you to make up your mind. Don’t let the cover, or the publisher’s hype, put you off.
par Jean-Marie Vigoureux, Editions Ellipses. Broché ISBN 2729823557, €19.50.
Un de plus! Cette année 2005 aura vu la multiplication d’ouvrages dédiés à Albert Einstein. Certains développent prioritairement l’histoire de l’homme et de sa vie, d’autres s’intéressent à sa théorie de la relativité.
Le présent livre commence par clarifier la question de la gravitation ´ l’aube du 20e siècle, avec ses grands succès (pendule de Foucault, découverte de la planéte de Le Verrier) et ses échecs (problème à trois corps, périhélie de Mercure), ces derniers semblant indiquer le besoin d’une “nouvelle physique”.
La partie de l’ouvrage la plus intéressante est l’introduction qui traite des débats philosophiques sur la notion de force agissant à distance à travers le vide, et sur les concepts d’espace et de temps avec les critiques de Ernst Mach pour qui l’espace est impensable sans la matière nécessaire pour le définir. Alors, Einstein arrive.
Le livre est très documenté, il comprend deux pages entières de bibliographie. Il ne comporte pratiquement aucune équation, même pas les transformations de Lorentz, ce qui est un bon point pour certains lecteurs. Cela limite cependant la compréhension globale, et les propriétés induites par la théorie (dilatation des temps, contraction des longueurs) sont données sans explication claire.
Le choix des conséquences abordées de la relativité est un peu arbitraire. L’auteur ne débat pas de la fameuse équation E = mc2, à peine citée, mais 10 pages sont consacrées aux tentatives infructueuses de Joseph Weber pour mettre en évidence les ondes gravitationnelles. Les acquis récents de la cosmologie (fond cosmologique, énergie noire) ne sont pas présentés, et aucune perspective n’est indiquée. La derniére partie relate la vie à Princeton d’un anticonformiste solitaire, berçant le rêve d’une théorie du tout.
Il existe sur le marché des biographies d’Einstein plus vivantes et des exposés plus complets de la relativité et de ses conséquences. Cet ouvrage donne l’impression d’un travail un peu impersonnel d’érudit. Ce qui peut gêner est le point de vue souvent hagiographique: on lit le récit de la vertueuse vie de Saint Albert, savant et philosophe en quête d’harmonie, et le sous-titre du livre “au prix d’une peine infinie” va jusqu’à lui conférer les palmes du martyre… ce qui peut paraître très exagéré.
Malgré tout, le livre vaut par de petits exemples bien expliqués qui aident à concrétiser la démarche d’Einstein vers l’élaboration de sa grande théorie de la relativité.
by John D Barrow, Oxford University Press. Hardback ISBN 019280569X, £20 ($30).
One contender for the premier division of popular-science writers is cosmologist John Barrow. He now has a long list of impressive titles to his credit, notably The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (with Frank Tipler), which introduced a whole new slant on cosmology and has become a classic of modern science, and The Left Hand of Creation (with Joseph Silk), which was one of the first popular books on modern cosmology.
Some arrogant physicists condemn any science that is not quantum mechanics or relativity as being lightweight. This pompous attitude antagonizes scientists in other disciplines, and many non-scientists too. Barrow’s imaginative literary work helps to demolish such preconceptions, breaking down barriers between specialist subjects and showing how far a mathematical approach can reach.
Barrow says that the popularization of quantum physics and cosmology has been well exploited, and aspiring writers should look elsewhere for subject matter. Heeding this advice, The Artful Universe Expanded, an updated and enlarged edition of a book that first appeared in 1995, is a collection of largely self-contained pieces in which scientific arguments illuminate a range of topics that include art, music, evolution and tradition.
The result is a delightfully diverse package of thought-provoking and entertaining articles. Ploughing through even the best popular science demands a certain effort and motivation, but the compact articles in this book are accessible. It is a book to dip into and meet, for example, “Jack the Dripper” – the fractal-inspired Jackson Pollock.
While Barrow is particularly good at explaining the sizes of things, in a few places there is a sense of déjà vu. Barrow’s figure 3.2 on the distribution of masses and sizes in the universe is the same as figure 5.1 in his Between Inner Space and Outer Space, published in 1999; and the customary illustrations of symmetry by Maurits Escher also appear in the book.
A mine of stimulating material, The Artful Universe Expanded anthology is a good choice for travellers or those simply looking for insight, and it is a prolific source of ideas for offbeat talks.
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