Associate CERN membership: Top physicists laud research quality in Pakistan
CERN director expects more collaboration with local scientists.
CERN director expects more collaboration with local scientists.
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan is in a better position to achieve stronger links with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) than some other countries, said Steve Myers, the director for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, on Sunday.
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.
Pakistan is in a better position to achieve stronger links with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) than some other countries, said Steve Myers, the director for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, on Sunday.
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.