Praxis Archives – Page 161 of 181

Survey helps US with long-range planning

Last year the US particle physics community mounted one of its periodic long-range planning exercises to provide a roadmap for the subject over the coming decade. The recommendations from this study, which was conducted by the High-Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) of the US Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, have been published.

cernsur1_1-02 — Young Physicists Panel members (left to right) Sam Zeller of Northwestern, John Krane of Iowa State and Bonnie Fleming of Columbia carried out a survey aimed at providing a consensus view for younger physics researchers. John Krane is holding a copy of the survey report.

As one conduit to this review, a Young Physicists Panel (YPP) was established by Bonnie Fleming of Columbia, John Krane of Iowa State and Sam Zeller of Northwestern to provide a platform and consensus view for younger researchers. Originally the YPP hoped to provide a brief summary document. However, the survey revealed instead that most respondents did not have a single opinion to convey, making the conclusions more difficult to digest, but at the same time probably more valuable.

A diverse range of questions

To be most useful to HEPAP, the survey, entitled “The future of high-energy physics”, focused on US aspects and needs. Although initially designed for and oriented towards “young” physicists (defined as those yet to achieve a permanent position or tenure), the study was extended to all particle physicists, both inside and outside the US. There were some 1500 replies, most of which were received via the Web.

The survey began with a request for demographic and personal information – current career status, geographical origin, place of work, type of physics done and size of collaboration. The highest profiles to emerge were of a North American working in North America, or a European working in Europe, on collider physics in a team of 500-1000 people. No surprises there.

The next series of questions were aimed at “balance versus focus”, asking what sort of research should be carried out at the next major physics machine to be built, how many detectors it should have and what sort of physicists it should employ.

In this section the emerging picture was of a machine supporting a diverse range of physics, with at least two detectors, employing comparable numbers of theorists, phenomenologists and experimentalists. An extra question showed that it is considered important for high-energy physics laboratories to host an astrophysics effort. Some do, some are in the process of doing so, and other laboratories have yet to satisfy this demand.

cernsur2_1-02 — Major physics collider collaboration: members of the Collider Detector Facility experiment at Fermilab’s Tevatron.

A section covering “globalization” lumped together anything to do with big science being concentrated at major centres. Most respondents admitted to seeing their detector at least weekly, so obviously they have easy access and would rather have it this way than be near their supervisor. A hands-on hardware requirement was seen as very important and, if a research centre was situated outside the US, national or regional access via a staging post was considered the best possible alternative to being centrestage.

Answers to specific questions on outreach underlined that particle physics is not doing nearly enough to communicate with either the relevant funding agencies or the general public. Half of the replies indicated that physicists were ready to dedicate more time to this important activity. (It is our opinion at CERN Courier that while this is very commendable, it is one thing to tick a box, but quite another to deliver. Unfortunately, few physicists have the imagination and commitment to contribute significantly to outreach activities.)

Scientific interest

The most revealing part of the survey was perhaps the one that asked participants why they had been attracted to particle physics originally and why they had remained in the field. The answers reveal that intrinsic scientific interest dominated the decision, whether for newcomers or for those further down the line. Science is clearly interesting, at least to some people, and here is a possible message for outreach.

Also very prominent was the opinion that a lack of jobs could drive young people out of the field. Another visible signal indicated that not enough talented physicists are retained. The big question that faces the field now is how to rectify this.

The remaining sections of the YPP survey focused on physics issues, and these were largely mirrored in the HEPAP recommendations. However, it was clear that opinions about the siting of future machines were polarized according to geographical base (North America or Europe). While most tenured US scientists think that it is important to have a major new facility in the US, this view is not mirrored among younger scientists.

With big issues at stake, casting a wider survey net could reveal a more global consensus within the physics community on the way to go forward.

Science knows no boundaries

cerndum1_1-02 — Russian vice-minister of science Mikhail Kirpichnikov opens an exhibition at the Russian Duma, presented by CERN and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Left to right: JINR director Vladimir Kadyshevsky, vice-director Alexei Sissakian, Alexander Olchevsky, Ivo Zvara of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Dimitry Shirkov, Nicholas Koulberg of CERN and John Ellis, CERN adviser for non-member state affairs and the author of this article.

First and foremost, CERN and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) are centres of scientific excellence. To mention just a couple of examples, at CERN, physicists discovered the massive particles that are responsible for radioactivity and made detailed measurements that established their underlying theory, resulting in two Nobel Prizes. JINR continues to play a pioneering role in both the discovery and the study of superheavy elements, one of which bears the name dubnium.

JINR and CERN are also living evidence that science knows no boundaries. CERN has 20 member states; JINR has 18. The two organizations were both founded in the years after the Second World War to enable European and other countries to contribute to fundamental physics in ways that they could not afford individually.

Now the two organizations have several member states in common, which was impossible during the Cold War. Nevertheless, CERN and JINR collaborated actively during that dark period, extending their hands to each other across the Iron Curtain. Consequently, they were able to seize the scientific and human possibilities opened up by the fall of the Berlin Wall.

JINR is now one of CERN’s most valued international partners. It has joined CERN in many experiments using CERN’s accelerators. Thousands of students have attended the advanced physics schools that have been organized jointly throughout Europe since the 1960s. Many friendships have been formed there, which have turned into international scientific collaborations that now span the world. Hundreds of JINR-affiliated scientists and engineers are now working with CERN and its other international partners on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project. Working together, physicists will use the LHC to study basic questions in physics, such as the origin of mass and the nature of the dark matter filling the universe.

The future

The LHC project presents unprecedented technical challenges, such as in the areas of superconducting technology, cryogenics and informatics. In the latter field, the World Wide Web was invented at CERN in the early 1990s to enable physicists around the world to share data from LEP and analyse them together. The requirements of the LHC are driving the next stage in the evolution of the Internet – the Grid – which will enable people anywhere in the world to use remote computer power, just as today the power grid enables us to use electrical energy without knowing where it was generated.

cerndum2_1-02 — Fabrication at JINR Dubna of a “tile” calorimeter module for the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Each of the 64 modules weighs 20 tonnes. JINR also coordinates work for other major modules at both the ATLAS and CMS experiments.

The LHC is also an unprecedented international collaboration. The accelerator is being built with important contributions from JINR, Russia, the US, Japan, India and Canada, as well as CERN and its member states. The LHC experiments are open to scientists worldwide, who currently originate from more than 80 countries. A special role is played by the International Association for the Promotion of Co-operation with Scientists from the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (INTAS) and the International Centre for Science and Technology (ISTC), which have facilitated the participation by many scientists and engineers from Russia in particular.

JINR is also making many important contributions to the LHC experiments, notably to CMS, ATLAS and ALICE. The JINR contibution is both direct, through its staff working at home and at CERN, and indirect, through its coordinating role for the contributions made by Dubna member states.

Fostering friendship

CERN has fostered some unique collaborations. For example, for many years it has had Indian and Pakistani physicists working together, as well as scientists from both Beijing and Taipei. Now an Iranian group is starting to work at CERN alongside Americans. In my own area – theoretical physics – CERN has had a postdoctoral fellow from Afghanistan, and another from Iran has recently written joint scientific papers with a CERN staff member from Israel.

Many of us fear that the openness of the international system is under unprecedented attack. Scientists must thus stand together to defend our common values. This joint exhibition by JINR and CERN clearly displays our common vision. We stand for scientific excellence, international understanding, dialogue to find common solutions to common problems, openness, development and progress. In the words of the Russian empress Elizabeth Petrovna, which were quoted at the exhibition, “Enlightenment of mind eradicates evil.”

Two foundation stones

CERN and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, near Moscow, were set up in 1954 and 1956 to provide a physics foundation for international collaboration. CERN set out to rebuild Western European science after the Second World War; Dubna had a similar mission for the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and further afield. Over the years, these two political spheres, isolated from each other during the Cold War, have grown closer.

Magazine plays its part in physics history

cernjam1_1-02 — James Gillies, the new editor of *CERN Courier*.

A news magazine is about developments. As scientific developments have unfolded over time, the many issues of this magazine have helped to reveal the history of particle physics.

The rate of particle physics discoveries, which was tumultuous during most of the 20th century, has slowed down. In the final years of the 20th century our knowledge and understanding reached a plateau in the Standard Model (few physicists share Murray Gell-Mann’s passion for coining imaginative words where they matter).

From this plateau, the view has widened. High energy means high temperature, so that particle physics and astrophysics, and even cosmology, find themselves more and more on common ground, tracking the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang in a still-hot universe. Not that long ago it would have been inconceivable for particle physicists to be interested in what happens in the sky. Now the latest news on microwave background radiation, supernovae, black holes and gamma-ray bursters is followed enthusiastically at major particle physics meetings. Astrowatch is one of the most popular features of this magazine.

Technological stampede

The rate of pure particle physics breakthroughs may have slowed temporarily, but an accompanying rush of technological innovation continues and even accelerates. To seek the elusive particle signatures of tomorrow, large experiments involving thousands of ingenious researchers scattered across the globe are today exploiting new materials and pushing innovative techniques to achieve what seemed impossible only yesterday.

The World Wide Web is just one example. Take telecommunications, microelectronics, cryogenics etc. At no time in history has technology been advancing so rapidly. Fundamental science is the spring from which many of these developments flow. Physicswatch monitors this evolution.

Visiting CERN recently was Mike Lazaridis, the president and co-chief executive of Research in Motion of Canada. He is a leading designer and manufacturer of wireless communications equipment. As a great believer in the importance of fundamental physics for society, Lazaridis is personally funding the Perimeter Institute in Southwestern Ontario – an institute dedicated to theoretical physics.

Lazaridis said: “Theoretical physics gave rise to virtually all of the technological advances of present-day society. From lasers to computers and from cellphones to magnetic resonance imaging, the road to today’s technological developments was based on yesterday’s groundbreaking theoretical physics.”

A continuing theme at CERN is international collaboration. The universal culture of physics brings people and nations together, surmounting political and other barriers. CERN was the first example of scientific international collaboration in post-war Europe. As well as furthering research in its member states, CERN helped to catalyse new contacts further afield, where contact was difficult because of politics or recent history. Even in the depths of the Cold War, there was contact between scientists at CERN and their counterparts in the Soviet Union.

Dwarfs and giants

The Geneva laboratory has gone on to become an even wider stage. Building the detectors for CERN’s proton antiproton collider in the late 1970s and early 1980s demanded a major international effort, mainly in Europe. However, even this is being dwarfed by the operations now under way worldwide to construct the Large Hadron Collider and its mighty detectors. While G8 powers and lesser giants naturally play an important role, being part of this effort is a source of great pride for nations that would otherwise not be able to participate in such prestigious research.

Today’s Standard Model may be a plateau of understanding, but it is not the ultimate summit of knowledge. Particle physics is poised to enter the next act in a drama for which the script has yet to be written. To understand a universe of unfathomable complexity will demand fresh insight and imagination.

The new theories…cannot even be explained adequately in words at all.
Paul Dirac

Describing the ultimate physics is a continual challenge. Quantum mechanics pioneer Paul Dirac pointed out: “The new theories…cannot even be explained adequately in words at all.” And that was back in 1930.

Fundamental science attracts keen minds.Working with these intellects is rewarding, but demanding. Articles written for a wide audience are not always welcomed by specialists who quickly point to the verbal inadequacies anticipated by Dirac. In constructing the intellectual cathedral of science, attributing individual recognition is particularly difficult. The world’s great lasting monuments may have been designed by far-sighted architects, but they were built by protracted teamwork.

Words aid comprehension. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) wrote in Novum Organum: “The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.” In a field where terminology is not always adopted for its transparency (quark fragmentation means exactly the opposite of what it implies), CERN Courier is widely appreciated. Its decoding of physics jargon is particularly welcomed by the world’s media. Above all, it delights in its use of that supremely functional instrument – the English language – which remains highly resilient to the abuse heaped upon it.

From news editor to new editor

Starting with this issue, James Gillies takes over as editor of CERN Courier, succeeding Gordon Fraser, who has been a major contributor to the magazine since his arrival at CERN in 1977 and its official editor since 1986.

The new editor is no newcomer to physics or physics writing. He began his career as a graduate student at Oxford working on CERN’s EMC experiment in the mid-1980s. Moving on to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), he then became increasingly interested in communicating science, working for a summer with the BBC World Service Science Unit; setting up a regular local radio science spot; and producing public information material for RAL.

In 1993 he left research to become the head of science at the British Council in Paris. After managing the council’s bilateral programme of scientific visits, exchanges, bursaries and cultural events for two years, he returned to CERN in 1995 as a science writer, and was soon installed as news editor of CERN Courier. He co-wrote, with Robert Cailliau of CERN, How the Web was Born – a history of the World Wide Web, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2000.

CERN Courier travels far with publishing partner

cernmag2_1-02 — *CERN Courier* product manager So-Mui Cheung of IOP.

CERN Courier magazine has come a long way since it was established as CERN’s house journal more than 40 years ago in 1958.

Soon after the magazine’s launch, it began to reflect particle physics developments worldwide, as well as what was happening at CERN. In 1975 a major world meeting of particle physics laboratory directors underlined the importance of the journal in serving the worldwide particle physics community, and the decision was taken to “go international”, with official correspondents in major research centres feeding in news, and with special arrangements for distribution in certain countries. Hence the paradox of a CERN magazine that is distributed all over the world.

This network of international correspondents is still in place and it is the lifeblood of the magazine. Another important aspect of CERN Courier is the distribution network that exists to get the magazine to its readers.

From printer to reader

CERN Courier is published 10 times a year in parallel English and French editions (the official languages for all important CERN documents). For each issue around 18,000 copies of the English edition and 5500 copies of the French edition are printed and distributed worldwide.

cernmag1_1-02 — Printing *CERN Courier* at Warners (Midlands), England.

With a total of 23,500 copies, CERN Courier is read far beyond the particle physics community, which accounts for about half of the total. Reader surveys have shown that the additional readership is mainly scientist administrators, scientists in other fields and students, all of whom want to keep up with developments in basic physics without wanting to get too involved with details.

In the 1990s it became clear that the magazine could not continue to evolve while being published using CERN’s limited in-house resources. In 1998, responsibility for the production and distribution of the magazine passed to the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP), in Bristol, England, which now publishes the magazine on CERN’s behalf. The editor at CERN retains responsibility for all of the editorial content, but the 1998 transition was a turning point in the magazine’s development.

A complex route

The task of distributing each edition of CERN Courier is both complex and challenging. The total print run of each issue weighs around 3 tonnes and has to be sent all over the world. Since IOP entered into a publishing partnership with CERN, it has been improving the distribution performance to shorten the time it takes for the journal to reach its readers. The magazine is available free of charge, so this distribution also has to be as economical as possible.

Readers can receive CERN Courier in two ways:

via internal distribution at major research centres – to receive the magazine regularly, please check with your local distribution centre;
via subscription (10,900 named subscribers, normally based at more isolated locations, receive individually mailed and addressed copies) – to become a regular reader via this route, see http://cerncourier. com/subscribe.html.

Coming off the press, each edition of CERN Courier splits into three separate routes:

within the UK, where copies leaving he printer for individual readers in Europe and the rest of the world are polythene-wrapped and labelled for onward mailing;
onwards to the US, where it is mailed and despatched to addresses in North America. For these readers, copies travel by truck from the printer to a freight handler, who books it onto a flight to New York. From there it goes on another truck to Illinois to be either enveloped and mailed, or packed in boxes and despatched to major research centres;
bulk deliveries to major distribution centres in Europe and further afield, including Beijing, CERN, Hamburg, Frascati, Moscow, Seoul and 16 other destinations.

Plans for improvement

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK, DESY in Hamburg and INFN in Frascati play a special role in the distribution of CERN Courier within their respective countries. Because of the logistics involved, RAL receives copies direct from the printer, while the other two centres currently receive their copies via Belgium. An initiative is already under way to establish closer links with these major distribution centres and to enhance the distribution performance further. CERN has a particularly heavy distribution load, sending copies all over the world as well as distributing them within the laboratory.

By the time the magazine arrives on a reader’s desk or is taken from a central pick-up point, its journey will have included rides on trucks, ferries and aeroplanes. It will have been scanned by customs officials and handled by international and national shippers, not to mention being sorted and distributed within major centres.

During 2001 we were able to reduce delivery times by, on average, four days for copies sent to individually mailed addresses. In a similar way, 4-10 days have been cut for those copies travelling to the US. There is still room for improvement, not least because of the rapidly changing world scene for postal and courier services. Soon we will implement a much-needed overhaul of some of the address lists. Readers who receive copies mailed from Europe should soon expect to receive a letter and a reply coupon as well as an issue of the magazine.

There are key people at the major distribution points who ensure that you receive your copy of CERN Courier each month. These are low-profile yet vitally important roles that ensure that mailing lists are up to date and that centres receive enough copies.

We are in contact with most of these key people, but not all. The magazine’s distribution network has in many cases developed by itself. A closer collaboration will help to improve the distribution of the magazine continuously, so if you have a role in this, please contact me.

The INFN marks half a century of research

The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) is the direct heir to Enrico Fermi and Bruno Rossi’s eminent pre-Second World War schools of physics. Its purpose remains the same – to investigate the innermost structure of matter, a curiosity-driven research that over the years has led to a deep exploration of nature and that today motivates physicists to “draw a picture of the Big Bang”.

cerninf1_1-02 — Celebrating 50 years: (front row, left to right) Luciano Maiani, Nicola Cabibbo and Carlo Rubbia at the opening ceremony of the INFN anniversary event.

As Giorgio Salvini, former Italian minister for universities and research, recalled, the institute first wanted to equip itself with an accelerator – the most powerful at the time. “Fermi himself had suggested aiming high in energy…as it was new physics,” said Salvini. Fermi – the last truly universal physicist – also suggested building an electronic calculating machine, the first prototype of which at Pisa soon made possible the first commercial computer in Italy.

INFN president Enzo Iarocci recalled the history of the institute and some of its most important achievements: international success linked to the names of Rubbia, Cabibbo, Maiani and Zichichi. During the celebrations, these scientists described their view of the challenges of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Nicola Cabibbo underlined the international extent of the research. “Discoveries [in this field] do not guarantee immediately profitable applications. Nevertheless, this kind of research stimulates great industrial interest, as experimental requirements continuously force technology to move on,” he said.

After recalling Fermi’s foresight and farsightedness, CERN director-general Luciano Maiani highlighted the INFN commitment to his laboratory and explained the expectations of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and other international projects.

For Antonino Zichichi, the major physics themes to be pursued in the coming years include matter-antimatter symmetry, quark-lepton flavour mixing, supersymmetry and dark matter – all of which are challenges that he views with both enthusiasm and optimism.

cerninf2_1-02 — Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare president Enzo Iarocci speaking at the opening ceremony of the 50th anniversary of the institute’s foundation. On his left is Edoardo Vesentini, president of Accademia dei Lincei.

Nobel prizewinner Carlo Rubbia looked forward to a spectacular scenario. “The new and fundamental role of particle physics is far from being complete. Recent astronomical observations have demonstrated that 95% of the universe is made of dark and exotic matter and energy, still invisible and unknown: this necessarily implies the existence of new kinds of elementary particle and of elementary vacuum,” he said. Experiments with accelerators, such as the LHC, can offer important contributions, but other avenues of research must not be neglected and they can open the way to new and promising studies. Rubbia added: “It’s time to start a new and fascinating discovery game.”

Stimulating students

Included in the proceedings was a meeting entitled “Building the future” at which INFN scientific perspectives in various research fields were considered – from nuclear physics to elementary particle and astroparticle physics. Among those attending were high-school student winners of the INFN contest – From atoms to quarks: a trip to the heart of matter. The aim of the contest was to stimulate students’ curiosity in physics and its fundamental research.

The closing day, dedicated to human resources, traced INFN history through people, recalling the institute’s spirit and tradition, where intellectual authority rules and where human relationships are not submerged by hierarchy.

When INFN was born in 1951 it was paradoxically already 20 years old: its origins date back to Enrico Fermi and Bruno Rossi’s schools of physics and to 1930s research in nuclear physics and cosmic rays. In 1926 Fermi became professor of theoretical physics in Rome, working with a group of brilliant young students who became known as the “ragazzi di via Panisperna” (the via Panispera boys).

The milestone 1931 International Congress in Nuclear Physics held in Rome was the first platform to make the new Italian physics more visible to the external world and it opened the way to an extraordinary fertility of ideas and results by Fermi’s group in particular and within nuclear physics in general.

Soon, national political developments led to anti-Semitism and the disintegration of the group. On 6 December 1938 Fermi and his family left Italy for Stockholm, where he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. From there he moved directly to the US and Rossi soon followed.

Despite enormous difficulties, research in Italy continued during the Second World War and it eventually led to major scientific and political achievements. It was time for both a national and an international relaunch of research via a general coordination of resources at both a local and a European level.

On 8 August 1951 INFN was created, with its first branches in Rome, Turin, Milan and Padua. Six months later, Edoardo Amaldi was designated general secretary of the institute and was also entrusted with the foundation of CERN.

CERN reacts to increased LHC costs

At its December meeting, CERN’s governing Council decided on new measures to react to the increased costs that emerged last year for its future Large Hadron Collider.

The collider (LHC), which is being constructed in the 27 km tunnel that was built in the 1980s for the LEP collider, will be packed with high-technology equipment and, in particular, will need 1232 superconducting dipole magnets to control its high-energy proton beams. Approval of the contract for these magnets – a final major supply item – clarified the LHC’s “cost to completion”.

CERN now has to look for ways of finding the extra money needed. A first proposal will be submitted to Council in March, and this will evolve into a medium- and long-term plan, which will be presented in June.

CERN has set up five Task Forces to study scientific programmes, possible areas of saving, restructuring, and improving resource management. Karl-Heinz Kissler has been appointed as CERN programme controller.

In another major move, Council approved a proposal to establish an External Review Committee (ERC) to examine two main areas: the LHC, its experimental areas and CERN’s share of LHC detector construction; and CERN’s scientific programme not directly related to the LHC.

The ERC’s comprehensive review will be carried out in parallel with the work of the internal Task Forces. The ERC’s interim report in March will be taken into consideration for the revised medium- and long-term plans. The final report will be presented in June.

cernnews1_1-02 — Robert Aymar, Director of ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), is Chairman of CERN’s new External Review Committee.

Robert Aymar of France, director of the International Project for an Experimental Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor (ITER), was appointed ERC chairman. The other members of the committee are Stephan Bieri of ETH Zurich; Bjorn Brandt of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research; Enrique Fernández of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Italo Mannelli of the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa; Sigurd Lettow of the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe; Marc Pannier of the French Ministry of Finance, Economy and Industry; John Peoples of Fermilab; and David Saxon of Glasgow University.

On the financial front, Council took the unusual step of stipulating that 5% (SwF53 million) of CERN’s 2002 budget would initially be frozen. Council will decide how to release this money in line with the new medium- and long-term plans.

For more information see “http://www.cern.ch/info/LHCCost”.

Subpanel recommends a collision course

cernnews4_1-02 — Long-term international R&D for the next major international machine – the Next Linear Collider Test Accelerator at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford. SLAC and the Japanese KEK laboratory collaborate closely in this work.

“We recommend that the highest priority of the US programme be a high-energy, high-luminosity, electron positron collider, wherever it is built in the world. This facility is the next major step in the field and should be designed, built and operated as a fully international effort.”

This forthright statement is one of the main recommendations of a subpanel set up by the US Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation to chart a 20 year “roadmap” for the future of fundamental physics research. The subpanel’s report states that this future begins with a thorough exploration of the TeV energy scale at CERN’s LHC, but that it does not end there. An electron-positron linear collider is seen as the next step after the LHC.

“We also recommend that the US take a leadership position in forming the international collaboration needed firstly to develop a final design, and then to build and operate this machine,” continues the report. “We recommend that the US prepare to bid to host the linear collider in a facility that is international from the inception.”

Regarding where such a machine would be built, the report adds: “If it is built in the US, the linear collider should be sited to take full advantage of the resources and infrastructure available at SLAC (Stanford, California), and Fermilab (near Chicago).”

The introduction to the report concludes: “The 20th century can be characterized by an increasingly global economic interdependence, as well as by many shared problems, including the health of the human race and of the Earth itself. It is becoming increasingly important to find successful international models for solving such problems. Particle physics represents one of the most successful areas of international co-operation. From the pivotal role of CERN in postwar Europe to the global collaborations of today, particle physicists have worked together with great success on problems of common interest. The construction of a linear collider will break new ground as an international partnership and provide a useful model for other areas of human endeavour.”

Au Coeur de la Matière

by Maurice Jacob, Editions Odile Jacob, ISBN 2738109802.

cernbooks2_12-01 — Event displays from CERN’s LEP collider provide vivid examples of particle interactions.

In this topical book, CERN theorist Maurice Jacob glibly traces the evolution of our understanding of the underlying structure of matter, from atoms to quarks – and its implications for cosmology. While the subject is not easy, the author manages to attain a remarkably deep level of insight without writing any equations. The many difficult concepts encountered en route are not glossed over or paraphrased (even though some of them could be). The presentation of the “Schrödinger’s cat” enigma is well done. A few explanations, like parity violation, would have benefited from an explanatory diagram. However, event displays from CERN’s LEP collider provide vivid examples of basic types of interaction.

An introduction manages to bring into the very first paragraph the enigma of quarks – unlike all other constituents of nature, quarks resist being isolated. The meat of the book goes on to trace in detail the mechanisms of the microworld, to climax on the one hand with the Standard Model and the state of particle physics today and on the other its implications for the Big Bang and the birth of the universe, which was initially just a big particle physics experiment.

Then comes a series of essays examining basic questions – the baffling concept of time, antimatter and the structure of the vacuum. Two more chapters look at the sociology of particle physics – how post-Second World War collaboration between scientists has catalysed new international understanding and helped overcome political barriers once perceived as insurmountable, and how this collaboration has attained a truly planetary level for the construction of the new LHC collider at CERN.

The final chapter examines the value of particle physics and its contributions to other branches of science – imaging for medicine and other applications, high-performance detectors, new techniques for data handling and parallel computing and underlines the value of research in education and training.

The book always uses CERN as its focus and reflects the vision of the organization’s spiritual fathers like Louis de Broglie who first saw the need for large-scale international scientific collaboration amid the ruins of post-war Europe.

The New World of Mr Tompkins

by George Gamov and Russell Stannard, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521639921, pbk £10.95/$16.95.

cernbooks3_12-01 — Mr Tompkins encounters physics.

Mr Tompkins is a dreamy, bemused character who blunders his way through the intricacies of modern physics.

Russell Stannard’s update of George Gamov’s famous portrayal appeared in 1999. At that time, Gamov’s 1965 “science fantasy” anthology was also reissued in paperback. Now the wheel has turned full circle with a paperback version of the new edition. Gamov’s original “Mr Tompkins in Wonderland” story appeared in 1940. Clearly there is still a lot of mileage left in Tompkins.

The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery

by Abraham Pais, Oxford University Press,
ISBN 0198506147, hbk £26.50.

cernbooks1_12-01 — Abraham Pais – scientific tennis man.

The Genius of Science is the last of many books written by Abraham Pais, who died last year.

Pais was an eminent theoretical physicist who gradually became more and more interested in the history of science and produced the much acclaimed biographies of Einstein and Bohr. He was very interested in people and over the years accumulated a large number of friends, many of whom have made very important contributions to physics. Being an excellent speaker, Pais was often invited to address meetings organized in honour of his prestigious colleagues.

The extended versions of these talks make up most of the contents of this book, which Pais also calls A portrait gallery of twentieth-century physicists. Like all of Pais’s books, it is very readable and describes in more or less detail the work and characters of 17 physicists who have left their mark on the development of physics – Niels Bohr, Max Born, Paul Dirac, Albert Einstein, Mitchell Feigenbaum, Res Jost, Oskar Klein, Hendrik Kramers, Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, Wolfgang Pauli, Isidor Rabi, Robert Serber, John von Neumann, Viktor Weisskopf, Eugene Wigner and George Uhlenbeck.

The book is well researched and contains countless interesting anecdotes. One sees clearly that the best work is done by young researchers, and that theoretical physicists can be classified as either “golfers or tennis players” – the former do their creative work alone, while the latter are most creative when they can exchange ideas with others. Luckily, Pais was a tennis man who with this book shares with us his love of physics and his deep interest in people.

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