Pioneers of Physics To Meet in Madison Next Week

Some of the world’s top physicists will be at the Monona Terrace Convention Center September 15 – 19 to update a multinational mission to find the origin of mass and the structure of matter.

Scientists chose Madison for the international meeting because of UW–Madison’s strong role in the high-energy physics project, based at the European Nuclear Research Center (CERN) in Geneva. Wesley Smith, UW–Madison physicist and conference organizer, says the massive particle accelerator is being designed to answer fundamental questions in particle physics.

Plans call for the building of a Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a powerful atom-smashing device that can help identify the building blocks of atoms. It will allow scientists to penetrate further into the structure of matter by recreating the conditions prevailing in the universe just after the “Big Bang.”

Smith says the upcoming meeting will focus on an experiment called the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), which is designed to search for an elusive subatomic particle called the Higgs boson. One of the only building blocks of matter left undiscovered, the Higgs boson is a critical ingredient in confirming theories about the weight of matter.

On Monday afternoon, Sept. 15, opening speakers will include Dr. Martha Krebs, director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Research, and UW–Madison Chancellor David Ward.

A public lecture by Professor Randy Ruchti of University of Notre Dame will be held on Monday (Sept. 15) at 7:30 p.m. in the Terrace Lecture Hall.

Particle research has yielded many practical benefits, Smith says, including particle beam treatments for inoperable tumors and synchrotron radiation to develop computer chips. Particle physicists at CERN also developed the World Wide Web.