European organization for nuclear research
Willibald Jentschke –
Willibald Jentschke founder of DESY and former Director"General of CERN passed away on March +
on 18 December 1959. Jentschke became its first director and remained in this position until 1970.
Jentschke served as Director-General of CERN Laboratory I – the original Meyrin site – from 1971–75. During the same period, John Adams was Director-General of the neighbouring Laboratory II, where the new SPS pro- ton synchrotron was being construct- ed. Having two Directors-General was an unusual and delicate situation, but to their eternal credit Jentschke and Adams handled it well. Jentschke oversaw the exploitation of important new investments, including an ambi- tious research programme for neutri- no physics. In 1973, this effort enabled physicists to discover the neutral cur- rents of the weak interaction. Faced with a major discovery, CERN was nervous. However, Jentschke ensured that the result went on record as one Born in Vienna, Willibald Jentschke of the Laboratory’s great achieve- obtained his Ph.D. in nuclear physics ments. at the age of 24. He continued working in this field in Vienna for many years. As Director-General of CERN In 1951, he became director of the Jentschke wrote in 1975: "I believe cyclotron laboratory at the University that we must base our future plans on of Illinois. When the University of international collaboration, certainly Hamburg offered him the chair for within Europe, or perhaps, if condi- experimental physics in 1955 he tions eventually permit, within a wider requested funds to create a modern context." This vision is now becoming research facility in Germany. The reality – it is his testament. Hamburg government offered him the outstanding sum of 7.5 million Deutschmarks for the construction of an accelerator. Accepting this offer, he became a member of the faculty in 1956. After lengthy negotiations with the German Federal Government and the German States, DESY was founded Annual report 2002
Victor Weisskopf -–
A colossus of modern physics Victor Weisskopf died on April + His career spanned and moulded the recent history of the subject+
the US, working at Rochester with Bethe.
During the Second World War he was appointed deputy to Bethe at Los Alamos. Following this experience, his warnings of the dangers of nuclear weapons were highly influential. Following the war, he moved to MIT, his US base for the rest of his life. In 1960, while serving as President of the American Physical Society, he was appointed to the CERN Directorate, becoming Director-General the fol- lowing year. It was during his historic mandate that the young Laboratory's role was charted.
After leaving CERN, Weisskopf main- tained a house nearby in France to which he returned every summer. For many years, his summer student lec- tures were a highlight at CERN. Delivered with minimal notes, these delightful talks were full of anecdote Serving as CERN Director-General and insight. With wide interests in from 1961–65, but also taking on a music and the arts as well as in sci- number of major responsibilities in ence, it was fitting that from 1975–78 the US, Victor Weisskopf was truly a he was President of the American citizen of the world. In all of his roles Academy of Arts and Sciences. he left a mark. The great French physicist Louis Leprince-Ringuet said At CERN, which he was fond of of him - “the spirit of CERN is his cre- describing as the 'United Scientific ation”. States of Europe', Weisskopf's influ- ence is still greatly felt. Weisskopf witnessed the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s as a graduate student at Born's school in Göttingen. He then worked with Schrödinger in Berlin, Bohr at Copenhagen, and Dirac and Peierls at Cambridge before being invited by Pauli to Zurich. In 1937 he moved to