CERN Courier June 2012 Faces & Places I NDUSTRY CERN supports new centre for business incubation in the UK To bridge the gap between basic science and industry, CERN and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have launched a new business-incubation centre in the UK. The centre will support businesses and entrepreneurs to take innovative technologies related to high-energy physics from technical concept to market reality. The centre, at STFC’s Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, follows the success of a business-incubation centre at the STFC’s Harwell campus, which has run for 10 years with the support of the European Space Agency (ESA). The ESA Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) supports entrepreneurs and hi-tech start-up companies to translate space technologies, applications and services into viable nonspace-related business ideas. The CERN-STFC BIC will nurture innovative ideas based on technologies developed at CERN, with a direct contribution from CERN in terms of expertise. The centre is managed by STFC Innovations Limited, the technology-transfer office of STFC, which will provide John Womersley, CEO of STFC, left, and Steve Myers, CERN’s director of accelerators and successful applicants with entrepreneurial technology, at the launch of the CERN-STFC Business Incubation Centre on the Daresbury support, including a dedicated business Science and Innovation Campus. (Image credit: STFC.) champion to help with business planning, accompanied technical visits to CERN as business expertise from STFC and CERN. total funding of up to £40,000 per company, well as access to scientific, technical and The selected projects will also receive a provided by STFC. On 27–28 March some 30 French companies presented their latest technological advances during the industrial exhibition “France at CERN”, which featured products and technologies related to activities at CERN. Here, Nicolas Niemtchinow, permanent representative of France to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, tours the exhibition with, to the right, Rolf Heuer, director-general of CERN, Frédérick Bordry, head of the technology department at CERN, and Fabrice Lelouvier, director of the Swiss branch of UBIFRANCE, the French Agency for International Business Development, responsible for promoting French technologies and know-how abroad. The event was sponsored by the French subsidiary of RS Components. 32 CCJun12-FacesPlaces.indd 32 16/05/2012 15:26 CERN Courier June 2012 Faces & Places A W A RDS Trân Thanh Vân receives the AIP’s Tate Medal The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has with results presented directly by those given its 2011 John Torrence Tate Award responsible for the analysis. Many prominent for International Leadership in Physics to physicists have given their first international Jean Trân Thanh Vân. He receives the award presentation at these Rencontres. In addition, “in recognition of his role spanning more Trân Thanh Vân has at all times promoted than four decades in bringing together the broad international collaboration; even in community of physicists across national and the most difficult times of the Cold War, he cultural borders through the Rencontres de ensured that scientists from all countries, Moriond and Rencontres de Blois, and for his including the USSR and the Eastern block, tireless efforts to build a modern scientific could participate. community in Vietnam”. Jean Trân Thanh Vân, left, with François In 1981, Trân Thanh Vân started the Trân Thanh Vân was born in Dong Hoi, Englert, at the 2012 Rencontres de Moriond, Moriond Astrophysics series, which is Vietnam, and spent his childhood in a country earlier this year. (Image credit: J-M Frère.) held in parallel with the particle-physics ravaged by war. At the age of 13 he left his Rencontres to maximize interactions between family to study in Hué and at the age of 17 took friendly and convivial atmosphere. the two disciplines. In this spirit of cross- an opportunity to go to university in France, The Rencontres de Moriond meetings went fertilization, a new series, the Rencontres ultimately gaining a doctorate in particle on to gain international stature as a venue for de Blois, was initiated in 1989, with the rich physics from the University of Paris in 1963. presenting new discoveries (CERN Courier architecture of the Loire valley providing a While working on his thesis, he perceived a July/August 2005 p21). Held in winter in the cultural backdrop. In 1993, with the opening lack of communication between theoreticians French Alps, the meetings provide plenty of Vietnam to the western world, the first and experimentalists in the same field so, of time for discussion, including breaks Rencontres du Vietnam were held to enable in 1966, he created with a few colleagues to share physical exercise in beautiful the Vietnamese scientific community – after a series of meetings – “Rencontres” – to surroundings. Another important feature is years of isolation – to develop contacts and promote exchange and collaboration in a the prominence given to young scientists, exchanges with foreign colleagues. Alain Aspect research director at the Centre National de Alain Aspect holds up his la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) as well as award. a professor at the Optics Institute Graduate receives Albert (Image credit: School and at École Polytechnique, Paris. He H Friedli / leads the Atomic Optics Group at the Charles Einstein Medal Albert Einstein Fabry Laboratory in Palaiseau (Optics Society.) Institute Graduate School/CNRS/Université Paris-Sud). In a ceremony on 10 May, Alain Aspect The Albert Einstein Society was founded received the Albert Einstein Medal 2012, in Bern in 1977 and the first medal was awarded by the Albert Einstein Society, awarded to Stephen Hawking in 1979, the Bern. The medal, which is to honour centenary of Einstein's birth. The society extraordinary achievements related to also maintains Einstein’s former flat, at Einstein’s legacy, is awarded to Aspect for physics, in particular for his experimental 49 Kramgasse in Bern, as a commemoration his fundamental contributions to quantum tests of Bell’s inequalities. Aspect is site open to the public. from 2007 until 2009, during the final London’s Royal commissioning and first stage of data-taking. Other new fellows announced on 19 April Society elects include Christopher Hull, who is also a professor at Imperial College. He has been new fellows elected for his imaginative and influential contributions to quantum gravity, specifically superstring and supergravity Tejinder (Jim) Virdee has been elected as theories. In addition, cosmologist Brian a fellow of the Royal Society in London. Schmidt, of the Australian National Virdee, who is professor at Imperial College University, becomes the 83rd Nobel London, is distinguished primarily for Laureate to join the ranks of the society’s the design, construction and exploitation fellows and foreign members. As leader of of the CMS experiment at the LHC. He the High-z Supernova Search, he shared originated the concept of CMS with four the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the colleagues around the year 1990 and went discovery of the accelerating expansion of on to be spokesperson for the collaboration Jim Virdee, now FRS. (Image credit: STFC.) the universe. 33 CCJun12-FacesPlaces.indd 33 16/05/2012 15:26 CERN Courier June 2012 Faces & Places C ORNELL M EETINGS The 8th Patras Workshop on Axions, Maury Tigner takes a back seat WIMPs and WISPs will be held on 18–22 July at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago. Maury Tigner has retired as Head of the This is the first time that this workshop Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based series is visiting the US and it continues ScienceS and Education (CLASSE) as of the tradition of attracting young scientists December 2011. together with experimental and theoretical Maury’s work and contributions to leaders in the field. The format includes accelerator physics and engineering have plenary sessions only, allowing ample time spanned five decades, having begun in for discussion. This year, participants will be 1959 with the nearly single-handed design able to spend one day at nearby Fermilab. For and construction of a 240 MeV electron further information, see http://axion-wimp. storage-ring for his doctoral thesis at desy.de. Cornell under Robert Wilson. His career has since covered critical developments QCD 12, the 16th Montpellier at Cornell, the beginnings of the HERA International Conference on Quantum electron–proton collider at DESY, the core Chromodynamics, will take place on of the design effort for the Superconducting 2–7 July in Montpellier. The meeting, Super Collider and vital help for Chinese which traditionally involves equal mixtures high-energy physics – all while being a of experimentalists and theorists, and of prime mover of fundamental developments young and senior physicists, will cover in superconducting RF technology. He also different aspects of QCD – perturbative, served as chair of the Machine Advisory non-perturbative and the interface with other Committee for the LHC at CERN and is Maury Tigner and colleagues in the early fields. For further information, seewww. co-editor of the widely used Handbook of days of CESR at Cornell. His drive and lpta.univ-montp2.fr/users/qcd/qcd2012/ Accelerator Physics and Engineering. vision have influenced the direction of qcd12/Welcome.html. Throughout his career, Maury’s drive accelerator development throughout the and vision have influenced the direction world. (Image credit: Cornell.) N EW P RODU C TS of accelerator development and inspired students and colleagues. An early example beam-dynamics effects related to the design Murata Power Solutions has announced is the seminal paper he published in 1965 options for damping rings for a future the UWQ series of isolated open-frame in Nuovo Cimento in which he envisioned International Linear Collider and it shared, 204 W DC/DC converters packaged in a colliding linac beams as an alternative to with CHESS, the operation of CESR.