“I am very much honoured to be given this opportunity to work with the ILC communicators and to be involved in promoting a science project of this scale,” said Misato Hayashida. A fourth ILC communicator has joined the Global Design Effort. Misato Hayashida, based at KEK, will be sharing the Asian communication duties with Rika […]
Korea to build new science and business city
Since the leadership of its President Lee Myung-bak, Korea has placed high value on science and technology. On 13 January, the government officially signed a contract for a big project to build an international science and business belt that includes the establishment of a new institute, the Asian Basic Science Institute (ABSI), and the construction of […]
From four to six quarks in a month and a half
An interview with Toshihide Maskawa, Nobel laureate of Physics
Toshihide Maskawa is one of the most popular public figures in Japan at the moment. He has charmed many Japanese people with his humour and pure passion for the science that he showed at the press conference after he won the 2008 Nobel prize in physics, together with Yoichiro Nambu, professor emeritus at Chicago University, […]
Beauty lies within
The inner surfaces of the niobium cavities for the International Linear Collider have to be polished to literally sparkle, since the smallest defects, such as bumps, pits, welding flaws or human-induced scratches on them are considered to be dominantly responsible for the deterioration of the cavity performance and can even lead to quenches and field […]
Understanding something new — interview with Makoto Kobayashi
This interview was originally done for November issue of the “ILC Tsushin”, the Japanese newsletter for non-scientific readers. It has been hectic days for Makoto Kobayashi, Professor emeritus at KEK, since 7 October, the announcement of 2008 Nobel Prize in physics. Now that one month has passed, Kobayashi finally gets to settle down a little […]
Understanding something new interview with Makoto Kobayashi
This interview was originally done for November issue of the “ILC Tsushin”, the Japanese newsletter for non-scientific readers. It has been hectic days for Makoto Kobayashi, Professor emeritus at KEK, since 7 October, the announcement of 2008 Nobel Prize in physics. Now that one month has passed, Kobayashi finally gets to settle down a little […]
Asian ILC researchers gathered in Korea
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 […]
2008 Nobel Prize goes to particle physics
Today's issue features a guest essay by James Wells, a theorist working at CERN who specialises in physics beyond the Standard Model.
Much of the history of particle physics has been devoted almost exclusively to finding out what our bodies are made of. We first learned about protons and electrons and neutrons because they constitute the matter that makes up our bodies, and we learned of photons (light) because it interacts with our bodies when we see. […]
World beam test tour at Fermilab
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 […]
Accelerator community communicates
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 […]