CERN: Greeks help re-create the Universe
10 / 09 / 2008
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, began an experiment today to recreate conditions just after the ‘Big Bang,’ which scientists believe gave birth to the universe. Its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will seek to collide two beams of particles at close to the speed of light. Scientists plan [...]
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, began an experiment today to recreate conditions just after the ‘Big Bang,’ which scientists believe gave birth to the universe. Its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will seek to collide two beams of particles at close to the speed of light. Scientists plan to circulate a beam in one direction around the accelerator today, and later send beams both ways to cause collisions.
Founded in 1954, CERN was one of Europe’s first joint ventures, and has become a shining example of successful international collaboration. From the original 12 signatories of the CERN convention, membership has grown to the present 20 member states. Some 7000 scientists, over half of the world’s particle physicists, use CERN’s facilities. They represent 500 universities and over 80 nationalities. At present, its member states are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have observer status.
Michael Koratzinos, Maria Spyropoulos, Evgenia Chatziaggelis, Giannis Papafilippou, Paraskevas Sfikas, and Christos Zamantzas are amongst the 30 plus Greek scientists that participate in the experiments, coming from the Aristorle University of Thessaloniki, the Athens Technical University in Athens, and the University of Ioannina.
The High Energy Physics group at the Institute of Nuclear Physics at NCSR “Demokritos” is part of the global CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The group’s contribution to this experiment includes the design and construction of the detectors in addition to the provision of computing (LCG grid) resources.
Research centres and universities from Europe, Russia, Japan and the USA are collaborating in the field of particle physics phenomenology as part of the HEPTools project-network, coordinated by “Democritos.”
Source: The Greek News Agenda
10 / 09 / 2008 | |
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