CERNCOURIER
CERN COURIER JULY/AUGUST 2019 31
WE
’
VE BEEN HERE BEFORE...
...the money
is trivial. Only
conservatism
or timidity
will stop itLost humour Top left: in April 1984 Phil Bryant highlighted the closure of the ISR with the intended message:
“Gentlemen, this is definitely the last project before we close the ISR!”. Top right: this cartoon from the August
1969 issue was titled “Where we stand – 1969” and illustrated the troublesome time that theory was having in
trying to accommodate the discovery of the splitting of the A2 meson. Bottom left: the November 1976 issue
carried this cartoon by Bob Gould of SLAC, depicting the reaction of the “man in the street” at a time when
high-energy physicists were in a state of euphoria over the discovery of the J/ψ, captioned: “Salutary reminder to
all who attempt to popularise science”. Bottom right: the October 1979 issue carried Alvaro De Rûjula’s view of the
current scene in particle theory: “Who will succeed in rescuing the quark damsel confined in her tower?”history that most physics students learn.
Within a few years of PS operations, attention soon
turned to a machine for the 1970s. A report on the 24th
session of the CERN Council in the July 1963 issue noted
ECFA’s recommendation that high priority be given to the
construction in Europe of two projects: a pair of intersecting
storage rings (ISR, which would become the world’s first
hadron collider) and a new proton accelerator of a very high
energy “probably around 300 GeV”, which would be 10 times
the size of the PS (and eventually renamed the Super Proton
Synchrotron, SPS). Mervyn Hine of the CERN directorate
for applied physics outlined in the August 1964 issue how
this so-called “Summit program” should be financed.
He estimated the total annual cost (including that of the
assumed national programmes) to be about 1100 million
Swiss Francs by 1973, concluding that this was in stepwith a minimum growth for total European science. He
wrote boldly: “The scientific case for Europe’s continuing
forcefully in high-energy physics is overwhelming; the
equipment needed is technically feasible; the scientific
manpower needed will be available; the money is trivial.
Only conservatism or timidity will stop it.”The development of science
Similar sentiments exist now in view of a post-LHC
collider. There is also nothing new, as the field grows
ever larger in scale, in attacks on high-energy physics
from outside. In an open letter published in the Courier
in April 1964, nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg argued
that the field had become “remote” and that few other
branches of science were “waiting breathlessly” for
insights from high-energy physics without which theyCCJulAug19_CERNat60_v3.indd 31 27/06/2019 15:30
CERNCOURIER.COMCERN COURIER JULY/AUGUST 2019FEATURE CERN COURIER AT 60
WE
’
VE BEEN HERE BEFORE...
Tales of colliders contained
in 60 illustrious years of
CERN Courier offer a rich
perspective on the strategic
decisions facing the field today.
I
n April 1960, Prince Philip, husband of Queen Eliz-
abeth II, piloted his Heron airplane to Geneva for an
informal visit to CERN. Having toured the laborator y’s
brand new “25 GeV” Proton Synchrotron (PS), he turned
to his host, president of the CERN Council François de
Rose, and struck at the heart of fundamental ex ploration:
“What have you got in mind for the future? Having built
this machine, what next?” he asked. De Rose replied that
this was a big problem for the field: “We do not really
know whether we are going to discover any thing new by
going beyond 25 GeV,” he said. Unbeknow n to de Rose and
everyone else at that time, the weak gauge bosons and
other phenomena that would transform particle physics
were lying not too far above the energy of the PS.
This is a story repeated in elementary particle physics,
and which CERN Courier, celebrating its 60th anniversary
this summer, offers a bite-sized glimpse of.
The first issue of the Courier was published in August
1959, just a few months before the PS switched on, at
a time when accelerators were taking off. The PS was
the first major European machine, quickly reaching an
energ y of 28 GeV, only to be surpassed the following year
by Brookhaven’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. The
March 1960 issue of the Courier described a meeting at
CERN where 245 scientists from 28 countries had discussed
“a dozen machines now being designed or constructed”.
Even plasma-based acceleration techniques – including
a “plasma betatron” at CERN – were on the table.A time gone by
The picture is not so different today (see p7), though admit-
tedly thinner on projects under construction. Some things
remain eerily pertinent: swap “25 GeV” for “13 TeV” in de
Rose’s response to Prince Philip, and his answer still stands
with respect to what lies beyond the LHC’s energy. Other
things are of a time gone by. The third issue of the Courier,
in October 1959, proudly declared that “elementary parti-
cles number 32” (by 1966 that number had grown to more
than 50 – see “Not so elementary” on p32). Another early
issue likened the 120 million Swiss Franc cost of the PS to
“10 cigarettes for each of the 220 million inhabitants ofTHE AUTHOR
Matthew
Chalmers
editor.CERN’s 12Member States”.
The general situation of elementary particle physics
back then, argued the August 1962 issue, could be lik-
ened to atomic physics in 1924 before the development
of quantum mechanics. Summarising the 1962 ICHEP
conference held at CERN, which attracted an impressive
450 physicists from 158 labs in 39 countries, the leader
of the CERN theory division Léon Van Hove wrote: “The
very fact that the variety of unexpected findings is so
puzzling is a promise that new fundamental discoveries
may well be in store at the end of a long process of eluci-
dation.” Van Hove was right, and the 1960s brought the
quark model and electroweak theor y, laying a path to the
Standard Model. Not that this paradigm shift is much
apparent when flicking through issues of the Courier from
the period; only hindsight can produce the neat logicalCCJulAug19_CERNat60_v3.indd 30 27/06/2019 15: