CERN turns 60(symmetrymagazine.org)
symmetrymagazine.org
CERN turns 60
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/september-2014/cern-turns-60
4 comments
I worked at CERN for a summer in college as a physics major. It was one of the formative experiences of my life. I remember getting drunk with a bunch of Iranians and Europeans, and sneaking in the middle of the night into the old abandoned particle accelerator tunnels from the 1950's.
I had the pleasure to spend a few years there. Quite interesting experience.
I hope ITER reaches CERN success
http://www.gac-epa.org/History/Bulletins/42-2012-04/Bulletin...
The communication protocols war raged in Europe from 1983 to 1992. Most governments opposed internet technology, backing instead nascent ISO networking standards. CERN’s decision to migrate to internet was heavily criticized by TCP/IP opponents.
In Geneva, the very first meeting of the Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Network (CCIRN) was in May 1988. This committee was the first attempt to harmonize the inter-regional operation of the emerging world-wide research network.
The second meeting took place in October 1988 at a summer resort in Western Virginia, sad and grey this particular autumn. The Americans turned up in force. Bill Bostwick, from the Department of Energy was the Chairman, Barry Leiner from the Department of Defense and Vint Cerf were present. The European representatives were thin on the ground: a German and British representative plus Francois Flückiger.
In 1991, 80% of the internet capacity in Europe for international traffic was installed at CERN, in building 513.
From 1985 to 1988, as CERN's first official "TCP/IP Co-ordinator", Segal was responsible for coordinating the introduction of the Internet protocols within CERN.
This router was one of two installed at CERN in 1987; they are thought to have been the first Cisco routers in Switzerland and possibly the first in Europe. We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.
This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.
The numbers make the problem clear. In 2007, the year before CERN first powered up the LHC, the lab produced 142 master's and Ph.D. theses, according to the lab's document server. Last year it produced 327. (Fermilab chipped in 54.) That abundance seems unlikely to vanish anytime soon, as last year ATLAS had 1000 grad students and CMS had 900.
In contrast, the INSPIRE Web site, a database for particle physics, currently lists 124 postdocs worldwide in experimental high-energy physics, the sort of work LHC grads have trained for.
The situation is equally difficult for postdocs trying to make the jump to a junior faculty position or a permanent job at a national lab. The Snowmass Young Physicists survey received responses from 956 early-career researchers, including 343 postdocs. But INSPIRE currently lists just 152 "junior" positions, including 61 in North America. And the supply of jobs isn't likely to increase, says John Finley, an astrophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is leading a search to replace two senior particle physicists.
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper
Indeed, even while giving complete satisfaction, they have no forward vision about the possibility of pursuing a career at CERN.
This lack of an element of social responsibility in the contract policy is unacceptable. Rather than serve as a cushion of laziness for supervisors, who often have only a limited and utilitarian view when defining the opening of an IC post, the contract policy must ensure the inclusion of an element of social justice, which is cruelly absent today.
http://staff-association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-...
Potential missing staff in some areas is a separate issue, and educational programmes are not designed to make up for it. On-the-job learning and training are not separated but dynamically linked together, benefiting to both parties. In my three years of operation, I have unfortunately witnessed cases where CERN duties and educational training became contradictory and even conflicting.
http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse-stud...