Trieste's Quarky Past

There is an unusual link between Trieste, the stately city where ICTP was established and still flourishes, and the exotic field of subnuclear particles. Almost everyone knows that a quark is the most elementary particle of matter. The name was coined in the 1960s by the distinguished theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate (1969) Murray Gell-Mann, who took it from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. For Gell-Mann, however, the word was pronounced 'quork;' for Joyce, the word was meant to rhyme with 'dark.' Dublin-born Joyce, one of the most innovative writers of the 20th century, spent more than 10 years in Trieste, teaching English at the Berlitz School. In Trieste, Joyce began to write his masterpiece, Ulysses. Surely, he would have been delighted but perplexed by the strange use--and sound--of his word "quarks" by modern physicists.

Murray Gell-Mann

The latest news about quarks arrived last February from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research located near Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers from CERN's heavy ion programme presented compelling evidence for the existence of a new state of matter in which quarks, instead of being bound into more complex particles such as protons and neutrons, are free to roam. The same 'wanderlust' principle may hold true for gluons, the particles that bind quarks together like 'glue' to create quark-gluon plasma.
Theory predicts that this state of matter must have existed microseconds after the Big Bang, before the formation of matter as we know it today. The findings of the CERN researchers represent the first time that such a theory has been confirmed experimentally.
The new 'bridge' between the particles' world and cosmology offers intriguing proof of the unity of the universe as a whole-a concept that has sparked the imagination of many specialists in high energy physics working at ICTP.

Recognition from The Royal Society

T.V. Ramakrishnan, a member of the ICTP Scientific Council, and M.S. Raghunathan, recently appointed a staff associate of the ICTP Mathematics Group, have both been elected Fellows of The Royal Society. Ramakrishnan, who is a professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, is an internationally renowned researcher in the field of condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics. Raghunathan, who is a distinguished professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, is an expert on algebraic and discontinuous groups. Ramakrishnan recently thanked the Centre for the contribution it has made to his career, particularly when he was a young researcher. In a letter to the ICTP director, he wrote: "I have been very fortunate in my association with people and places such as ICTP, which was important for my continued activity and growth, especially in the 1970s." For an in-depth discussion of Ramakrishnan's view on the state of scientific research in India, see News from ICTP, Summer 1999. Ramakrishnan and Raghunathan were among 48 distinguished scientists from around the world elected to The Royal Society this year. Membership in the Society currently totals 1293.

InterAcademy Panel Comes to Trieste

The Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), part of the legacy of ICTP founder Abdus Salam, has been chosen to host the secretariat of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP). The decision was made at the Conference of the World's Scientific Academies, "Transition to Sustainability in the 21st Century," held in Tokyo, Japan, in May. The purpose of IAP, which was created in 1995, is to foster co-operation, networking and capacity-building among scientific academies and to strengthen the voice of academies in discussions of science-related issues in both national and international fora. IAP membership currently consists of 80 scientific academies worldwide. For the past five years, the secretariat has been located at The Royal Society in London. The relocation of the secretariat to Trieste has received strong support from Italian officials at all levels of government. Several sites are now under consideration for a permanent home for IAP, which will be located with TWAS at the same site. Until the move takes place, IAP secretariat will be housed in offices at ICTP.

Dignity, Science and the Third World

Nicola Cabibbo

"Abdus Salam helped to instill a sense of dignity among Third World scientists," observes Nicola Cabibbo, who represented the Italian government at the last meeting of the ICTP Scientific Council in April. A leading theoretical physicist at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Cabibbo is well versed in the political, social and cultural aspects of science. Former president of INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics) and ENEA (Ente per le Nuove tecnologie, I'Energia e I'Ambiente, the Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment), Cabibbo currently heads the Accademia Pontificia delle Scienze, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a scientific advisory panel for the Vatican. Salam was also a member.
What does dignity mean for a scientist from the developing world? Cabibbo explains: "It means not merely to maintain a good scientific level, but to be heard and respected in one's own country. It means not to be discriminated against in international scientific journals. It means to feel part of a larger community despite hailing from a country where political elites rarely display interest in science and where science rarely has a practical impact on society. Thanks to ICTP, these scientists share a common home away from home."
One of the major problems in the Third World is the lack of quality scientific libraries. A good technical library requires an annual budget of hundreds of thousand dollars-an impossible expense for a poor country. But Cabibbo is confident that the solution can come from the internet, whose costs are becoming lower and lower.
"By using a network of satellites in geosynchronous orbit," he says, "we could connect all Third World countries via the internet, even if many of these countries do not have reliable telephone lines. Such efforts could provide scientists in remote regions with access to the archives of the best electronic libraries in the world and offer them a way to communicate with their colleagues via e-mail even when separated by continents and oceans."

Luciano Reatto

Luciano Reatto, professor of physics at the University of Milan and long-time visitor to the Centre, agrees that new technologies will help scientists from developing countries overcome the isolation that often poses the most serious obstacle to building a successful career. For instance, he emphasises the potential offered by remote sensing, a tool that can inexpensively provide a treasure trove of detailed scientific information about a region or area.
"But don't ignore the value of more theoretical investigations," Reatto warns. "The study of mathematics, statistical mechanics and complex systems could provide important insights into critical interdisciplinary issues not only in industrialised nations but in developing countries as well."
Reatto, who represented the INFM, the Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia (Italian National Institute for the Physics of Matter) at the ICTP Scientific Council meeting, also stresses the importance of the recent agreement between ICTP and INFM that sets the stage for increasing the number of young scientists who may pursue research in both institutions under a co-operative exchange programme.
"Condensed matter physics is an important topic for developing countries," he notes. Theoretical studies in this field have potential implications for electronics, advanced materials and computer science.
"ICTP has a renowned theoretical staff in this field and a long and successful track record of training and research programmes. The agreement between the Centre and INFM will offer new opportunities for scientists from the Third World to become more knowledgeable about the state-of-the-art of science and technology in this field. At the same time, scientists from developed countries will become better acquainted with issues that are most relevant to their counterparts from the developing world. That's exactly the kind of exchange that has earned ICTP a reputation for serving as a viable scientific bridge between the South and North."

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