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Author archive: Rika Takahashi

Understanding something new interview with Makoto Kobayashi

| 26 November 2008 This interview was originally done for November issue of the "ILC Tsushin", the Japanese newsletter for non-scientific readers. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

Asian ILC researchers gathered in Korea

| 23 October 2008 From 29 to 30 September, the second Asia ILC R&D Seminar was held at Kyungpook National University (KNU) in Korea with help from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Core University Program and the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. This workshop aimed to review the progress of R&D for the ILC accelerator in Asia region, and to promote regional and inter-regional collaborations on the accelerator and active participations from individual countries to ILC, focusing on the installation schedule and preparation for commissioning. Category: Feature | Tagged: , ,

2008 Nobel Prize goes to particle physics

| 9 October 2008 This year's Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to a Japanese-born American and two Japanese particle physicists: Yoichiro Nambu, professor emeritus at University of Chicago, for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, Makoto Kobayashi, professor emeritus at KEK and executive director of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and Toshihide Maskawa, professor at Kyoto Sangyo University in Kyoto, for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

World beam test tour at Fermilab

| 2 October 2008 The International Linear Collider requires a detector with excellent performance to fully exploit its physics potential. In order to meet this challenge, significant improvements in the calorimetric performance are needed compared to previous generations of detectors, and new technologies and techniques are being developed. To test those technologies and techniques with particle beams, scientists are travelling around the world, to where beamlines with particle beams for tests are available. Category: Feature | Tagged: , , ,

Accelerator community communicates

| 25 September 2008 On Wednesday, 24 September, KEK held a symposium entitled “Starting up the world's most powerful accelerators: LHC and J-PARC” in Tokyo. This symposium was the second one in a series of symposiums aiming for gaining more understanding of accelerator science. The main audience of this symposium was the industry. “We would like to place an emphasis on the collaboration between industry, the universities and the laboratories which enable those big accelerator projects,” said Mitsuaki Nozaki, the chief organiser of the symposium. “I believe that efforts like these are essential to realise another big accelerator project in the future, such as the ILC,” he added. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,

ILC goes Comiket

| 21 August 2008 This summer the International Linear Collider made a debut in world famous "Comiket" Comic Market, held in Tokyo. Comike is the world's largest comic convention with a history of over a quarter of a century, and is the hall of fame of the "Otaku" culture. More than half a million attendees came from all over the world for this three-day event. So, what did all these people come for? The answer is the "doujinshi," self-published publications which are usually manga or novels. Most works are written and edited by amateur writers or artists, but some are famous professionals who started from doujinshi. People wanting to buy their works sometimes have to wait for more than three hours. Category: Feature | Tagged:

Federation beyond policy difference

| 7 August 2008 A day before Japanese cabinet reshuffling, Diet members and other senior government officials took time out from their busy schedule to attend the inaugural meeting of newly formed "Federation of Diet members to promote the realisation of ILC" with a group with representatives from all political parties in Japan: Liberal Democratic party (LDP), Democratic party of Japan (DPJ), New Komeito (NK), Social Democratic Party (SDP), The People's New Party (PNP), and Japanese Communist Party (JCP). The federation's letter of intent describes its aim the promotion of the ILC project recognising that particle physics, as a research field with no ethnical, national or ideological borders, is the essential part of the nation's basic science research strategy. Category: Around the World | Tagged: ,

Enjoying cool science

| 24 July 2008 On the first day of a three-day weekend with a Japanese national holiday, Day of the Sea, about 300 people changed their destination from seaside to science. They enjoyed talks on cool science on a hot Saturday afternoon in Tokyo at a symposium called “Denshi-koraidah ga toku ucyu sousei no puzzle (Solving the puzzle of the universe with electron-positron colliders),” organised by KEK. The symposium introduced the science to be delivered by future electron-positron colliders to a non-scientific audience. The symposium was a two-part event. The first part consisted of talks by three top-notch scientists – Hitoshi Murayama, Director General of Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU), Shoken Miyama, Director General of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and Atsuto Suzuki, Director General of KEK. The second part was a panel discussion with those three scientists and Shinji Kimoto, a science-fiction novelist who wrote the award-winning novel 'Kamisama no Puzzle', and was moderated by Shigehiko Nakajima, Editor-in-Chief of Nikkei Science Magazine, the Japanese edition of Scientific American. Category: Feature | Tagged: , ,

New forum for promotion of advanced accelerator technology and scienceForum meets in Tokyo

| 19 June 2008 On June 11, the executive officers of leading Japanese companies, important dignitaries, and a physics Nobel Prize winner gathered at Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, Japan to celebrate the establishment of a forum for promotion of advanced accelerator technology and science (official English name yet to be determined). The forum aims to develop the structure which will be the core of the industry- government-academia alliance to pursue R&D for next- generation accelerators. The organising committee was formed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industrial Ltd. (MHI), Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric Co., and KEK. Companies from across various industries, laboratories and universities Category: Feature | Tagged: , ,

ATF shuts down for summer

and | 5 June 2008 On the last day of May, ILC scientists and engineers enjoyed a barbecue, sushi and Ton-jiru miso soup with pork and vegetables in front of the ATF (Accelerator Test Facility at KEK) container. This gathering, called the ATF end-of-run party, has been a routine event for over ten years. Category: Feature | Tagged: ,