On 27 May this year, Barack Obama visited the site of atomic bombing in Hiroshima – a first for a serving President of the United States. I was deeply moved by the picture where Obama embraced an aging hibakusha, an atomic bomb survivor. It was very significant that the visit was not about the war […]
Brexit and Linear Colliders
By now you are probably tired of hearing about the fall-out from the outcome of the recent UK referendum in which, of the 72% of electors who voted, 52% expressed a preference for the UK to quit the European Union (EU): the “Brexit” option. But I cannot resist the opportunity afforded by this editorial to […]
One step further with the ILC Human Resource Working Group activities at MEXT, Japan
The Japanese ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology MEXT has been investigating the ILC project and the feasibility for it to be hosted in Japan with three working group activities on “Particle and Nuclear Physics” and “Technical Design Report validation” since JFY2014 and “Human Resource ensuring and training” since JFY2015, under the supervision […]
Rethinking the linear collider in view of the bump
The 2016 ECFA Linear Collider Workshop took place in the beautiful Spanish city of Santander from 30 May to 5 June. It brought together more than 200 experimentalists, theorists and machine builders to discuss the latest developments in linear-collider physics. The Director General of KEK, Masanori Yamauchi, summarised the present status of discussion in Japan concerning […]
Coming up: the ECFA Linear Collider Workshop
In a global collaboration most of the personal interactions take place electronically, so our bi-annual linear collider workshops take on extra significance as one of the few opportunities to provide high-bandwidth (face-to-face) communication. For the accelerator community the upcoming Santander Workshop will enable progress in the ILC design to be both examined and where appropriate […]
What Is Basic Science Good For?
I spend a fair amount of time giving public lectures on particle physics and cosmology around the world. Quite often, I receive the same question from the audience, “what is this good for?” There is a wonderful movie titled Particle Fever, a documentary about the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider […]
Looking into the crystal ball
At its recent meeting in Japan, the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) decided that it would form a small subcommittee to discuss and recommend what structures should follow the current Linear Collider Board (LCB) and Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC) when their current (extended) mandates terminate at the end of this year. The committee consists […]
Driving cooperation projects forward
The 38th US-Japan HEP meeting
On 4 and 5 April last week, during the peak of the cherry blossoms in Japan, I attended the 38th US-Japan Joint Committee for High Energy Physics meeting at the KEK laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan as part of the US delegation. These metings happen annually and the location alternates between Japan and the US. The […]
Morioka welcomes next LC workshop
The 2016 international linear collider workshop LCWS2016 will be held in Morioka, Japan from 5 to 9 December. Since around 2010, two linear collider workshops are held per year – one in spring and another in autumn. Recent tradition is that the one in spring is hosted regionally, and the one in autumn is hosted […]
Adapting to change
The International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) is a biannual gathering of the heads of major particle physics labs and institutes from around the world for the purpose of sharing news, liaising, and working together to promote global collaboration in our field. The Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC) has its mandate from ICFA, and the LC […]