idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Darmstadt/Berlin, 7 November 2007 - Nuclear physicists from around the world are today celebrating the official launch of the particle accelerator FAIR with a gala event and a scientific symposium. The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research is being set up on the grounds of the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt. The heavy ion research institute is part of the Helmholtz Association.
"Fifteen countries are now involved in this unique project," says Prof. Jürgen Mlynek, President of the Helmholtz Association. FAIR will eventually cost around €1.2 billion, 75 percent of which will be covered by Germany, the rest being contributed by the other participating countries.
"FAIR is intended to answer some very fundamental questions of physics that up to now have been impossible to investigate experimentally," Mlynek explains. Why protons weigh more than the three quarks they consist of, for example, is a mystery. And the powerful force that binds together the particles in the nucleus of an atom can also be examined more closely in experiments at FAIR. These will enable physicists to understand how atoms and heavy elements formed to create matter following the big bang.
NB: Press conference at 5:10 p.m. on the GSI premises, with:
Prof. Horst Stöcker, Scientific Director, GSI
Dr. Annette Schavan, Federal Minister of Education and Research
Roland Koch, Minister-President of Hesse
Representatives of cooperating countries
Prof. Jürgen Mlynek, President, Helmholtz Association.
Further information on FAIR:
From this afternoon you can access a podcast on FAIR and an interview with its project director, Prof. Hans Gutbrod, in German and English at: http://www.helmholtz.de/de/Aktuelles/Helmholtz-Audio.html
More detailed information is available at: http://www.gsi.de/fair/index.html
The Helmholtz Association contributes to solving major challenges facing society, science and industry with top scientific achievements in six research areas: Energy; Earth and Environment; Health; Key Technologies; Structure of Matter; Transport and Space. With 26,500 employees in 15 research centres and an annual budget of approximately €2.3 billion, the Helmholtz Association is Germany's largest scientific organisation. Its work follows in the tradition of the great natural scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894).
Criteria of this press release:
Electrical engineering, Energy, Mathematics, Physics / astronomy
transregional, national
Organisational matters, Research projects
English
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