CERN director expects more collaboration with local scientists.
CERN is the topmost particle physics laboratory in the world and the LHC, its brainchild, is the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, credited with the discovery of the Higgs Boson.
“Countries that apply for associate member status must have scientific infrastructure that is compatible with what we have at CERN,” Myers informed The Express Tribune. “Pakistan has the necessary infrastructure to benefit from associate membership.”
He added that though countries like Ukraine and Brazil had applied for associate membership of the science body, Pakistani physicists were more focused towards an improved CERN link.
Local physicists believe that a stronger association with CERN will win Pakistan greater access to experimental data from the LHC and will allow local companies to manufacture electronic equipment for the top research facility.
Myers, along with Fernando Quevedo, the director of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), visited different universities and research organiations in Islamabad on Sunday. The directors said that they were ‘very impressed’ by the research work being carried out in Pakistan.
“I think I was very impressed by the different institutes we visited,” Quevedo said. “The institutes are investing in the right way in both fundamental physics and applied physics.”
He said ICTP has a special relationship with Pakistan because of Salam, the centre’s founding father. Pakistan is one of the countries that participate in a wide range of ICTP programmes each year, including a three-month associate programme, Quevedo said.
Responding to a question about whether Pakistan’s collaboration would only be limited to equipment, Myers said that several Pakistani physicists were working on LHC experiments and the work will be expanded in the future.
He said that CERN was putting some effort into medical applications using accelerator and detector physics and there could be more collaboration with Pakistan in that area.
Myers is on a two-day visit to Pakistan to attend the opening of the 38th annual International Nathiagali Summer College (INSC), a gathering of scientists and researchers from around the world held in Nathiagali every year.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 24th, 2013.
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Maik and others like him represent the breed of Pakistanis, who would criticize just for the fun of it. Now this is a real time realization of Pakistan's potential and i hope we also prove ourselves to be worthy enough to top world's expectations. HEC is doing a better job in setting up infrastructure in our professional institutions and that should be appreciated, it has already started to yield results.
So all you want is to read negative about our country. I wonder why! We should welcome ET for posting this news!! Thank you very much ET. Keep up the great work!
Cooperation with CERN underlines the importance of scientific research and higher education for economic and technological development. I feel proud that Pakistan has been associated very closely with CERN over the past several years. Pakistan has limited resources, but we know the importance of associating ourselves with this advanced scientific endeavour in particle physics.
The informal scientific co-operation between CERN and Pakistan dates back to the 1960s, when Pakistan was introduced to CERN through Abdus Salam. On the other hand, Pakistan has always lagged behind in experimental particle physics due to a lack of resources. It was strongly felt by the scientists of Pakistan that a national centre for physics of very high international standards was needed. So we welcome this Pakistani move.
ET...stop posting these stories. Any religious nut trolling this website can read them and inform his band of pagals to launch a fatwa against physics in this country. Leave the scientists alone. Keep their news away from taliban minded pakistani population.