The project leader
Lyn Evans, project leader for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva
Lyn Evans is building the biggest machine in the world. The Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometre-long chain of superconducting magnets at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, will be the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. By smashing together particles and reading the debris, it should take physicists to a new level in our understanding of nature. Managing such a vast project is no simple task. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge mixture of physics, engineering, politics鈥� and contract litigation,鈥� he says.
Evans has been building particle accelerators for more than 30 years. He arrived at CERN in 1969 on a three-month contract to work on a linear accelerator. Two years later, the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) was approved to compete with Fermilab鈥檚 proton accelerator in the US. Its aim was to see what might exist at higher energies, and whether the complex set of heavy particles discovered in earlier accelerators had some underlying symmetry. It was Evans鈥檚 job to design the hardware to keep the SPS鈥檚 highly unstable beams of protons tightly focused as they were accelerated.
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In the late 1970s, Evans turned down a job that many other scientists would have jumped at 鈥� working on the Joint European Torus, a prototype nuclear fusion reactor in Oxfordshire. 鈥淚t was an exciting time at CERN,鈥� he explains. One thing he was working on was how to accelerate antiprotons to collide head-on with protons in the SPS, generating enough energy to create W and Z bosons. The work paid off, and in 1983 the discovery of these fundamental particles confirmed physicists鈥� theories of how electromagnetism is linked to the weak nuclear force.
In 1990, Evans was appointed department head of the SPS, and eventually ran the Large Electron Positron Collider, which occupied the tunnel now taken up by the LHC. 鈥淚t was difficult at the beginning, handling so many people 鈥� not an easy transition from being an innocent scientist with very little knowledge outside accelerator science. I don鈥檛 know how you train for it. You just learn on the job and become streetwise,鈥� Evans recalls.
His appointment at the LHC in 1993 added a political dimension to Evans鈥檚 career. 鈥淭he early 1990s was a bumpy period.鈥� A lack of funding from CERN鈥檚 member states meant that, as well as designing the machine, he had to go on the road along with CERN head Christopher Llewellyn Smith to persuade non-members to chip in 鈥� and the US, Japan, Russia, India and Canada did so.
The collider is now built, but a lot more work will be needed before it is up and running. Evans and his team are now cooling down the first eighth of the LHC. 鈥淭hat alone is 1.5 times bigger than anything that鈥檚 been done before,鈥� says Evans. The accelerator鈥檚 electromagnets have to be very cold to superconduct, at which point they are powerful enough to accelerate the beams to the necessary high energy. The final stage in the cooling process involves feeding in liquid helium at a temperature of 1.9 kelvin, which is so cold that the helium becomes superfluid. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a quantum liquid, with very unusual properties as an engineering material. It will flow through the tiniest crack, which makes life challenging for the welders,鈥� he says. 鈥淚n the lab, we normally play with this stuff in gram quantities; here, we鈥檝e got 100 tonnes.鈥�
By the end of this year, Evans hopes to finally get beams of protons circulating around the machine, then 2008 will be 鈥渢he big year鈥�, taking the LHC up to full energy. At this point, his machine might begin to find evidence for heavy 鈥渟uperpartners鈥� of ordinary matter, or extra dimensions of space, or just possibly start to manufacture microscopic black holes.
The academic
Peter Coles, professor of cosmology, University of Nottingham
鈥淭here鈥檚 a curious thing going on in cosmology,鈥� says Peter Coles. 鈥淔or the first time there is a standard model that fits the data, but it鈥檚 weird: 70 per cent of the universe is dark energy and we have no idea what it is, and 25 per cent is dark matter and we don鈥檛 know what that is. If somebody had asked me how to design a universe, frankly I wouldn鈥檛 have come up with that. It seems quite unnatural from the physics point of view, which suggests to me that at some level it might be wrong.鈥�
聯If I was asked to design a universe, I wouldn鈥檛 have chosen that聰
That is an exciting prospect for Coles, the first professor of cosmology appointed at the University of Nottingham. The main aim of his research is to explain the pattern of matter in the universe, calculating how galaxies and clusters might have evolved.
Coles was not always interested in cosmology. His undergraduate degree in natural sciences at the University of Cambridge did include one cosmology course, but it was mostly about observations, and he had already decided to be a theorist. 鈥淚t didn鈥檛 set me aflame,鈥� he admits. When he was interviewed for a PhD place at the University of Sussex, his soon-to-be-supervisor John Barrow suggested a project working on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) 鈥� the radiation emitted by the universe when it was only 380,000 years old. Specifically, the aim was to investigate what it might look like. 鈥淲hat seemed interesting to me was not to do with cosmology, but the fact that it involved statistics and mathematical probabilities,鈥� says Coles. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 when I started getting into cosmology. Until you start working in a field you don鈥檛 realise what鈥檚 involved.鈥�
Since then he has used the same kind of computerised statistical analysis that finds subtle patterns in a mass of data to look at the large-scale structure of the universe: the pattern of galaxies, galaxy clusters and superclusters, which grew out of those ancient fluctuations. Finding the time for research can be difficult, however, says Coles, because of the competing demands of academic life. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about 50 per cent teaching and 50 per cent admin. The rest of the time is for research,鈥� he jokes. 鈥淗aving said that, the advantage of the academic life is that you鈥檙e basically doing as a job what you鈥檇 be doing as a hobby even if you weren鈥檛 being paid for it.鈥�
Recently, Coles has gone back to studying the cosmic microwave background. 鈥淟ots of features are not well understood,鈥� he says. Although NASA鈥檚 microwave probe WMAP largely confirmed the standard model of cosmology in 2003, it also spotted features that don鈥檛 fit, such as the 鈥渁xis of evil鈥� 鈥� an unexpected alignment of temperature patterns in the CMB.
That could be good news for those entering the field today. 鈥淭he edifice we鈥檝e assembled has sufficient cracks in it that it might all come tumbling down, which is the most exciting thing that can happen in science.鈥�
The entrepreneur
Hugh Cormican, managing director of Andor Technology, Belfast
Some physicists do not dream of academic achievement. 鈥淚 went into physics with the idea I wanted to be in business,鈥� says Hugh Cormican. 鈥淚 anticipated that after my PhD I would work for a big multinational, get some experience, and then set up on my own.鈥�
However, an opportunity presented itself much sooner, while Cormican was still studying for his PhD at Queen鈥檚 University, Belfast, in the late 1980s. As a tool for their laser research, he and colleague Donal Denvir used their physics know-how to build a highly sensitive digital camera. They set up Andor Technology to develop it into a commercial product for use in scientific research. 鈥淚t knocked my PhD project back a wee while,鈥� he admits.
Andor is now worth 拢30 million, and has about 150 staff around the world. 杏吧原创s use the company鈥檚 cameras for photographing everything from faint galaxies to living tissue. For example, one is used to record how proteins work. Biologists add fluorescent chemicals to a sample of tissue, and illuminate them with laser light. Strapped to a microscope, the camera picks up changes in the fluorescence, which can reveal how a protein binds itself to a surface, for instance. A highly sensitive camera is vital because if the illumination is too strong you鈥檒l disturb the cell or even kill it.
Cormican manages to balance an understanding of this technical side of Andor with business acumen. 鈥淚 like to spend time in the lab with my sleeves rolled up, but I also like to get out and meet people. It鈥檚 not a chore. I still think it鈥檚 one of the best jobs in the world.
鈥淚 do think that physics is a fundamentally good subject for entrepreneurs. Business is something physicists tackle with similar zeal to tackling other problems: you build a model and test it; if it works you go further, otherwise you change the model,鈥� he says.
Nor does Cormican think the stereotypical introversion of physicists is a serious barrier to business success. 鈥淧hysicists have this reputation for geekiness, but things have moved on 鈥� the geeks mostly run the world now.鈥�