'Ironic that Bose did not get Nobel'
4 Sept 2012 7:24 AM IST
India is like the 'historic father' of the Higgs boson project, the search for what could be the basic building block of the cosmos, says CERN chief Rolf-Dieter Heuer, ruing that Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose, from whose surname the word 'boson' is derived, did not get the Nobel Prize.
'India is like a historic father of the project. I am really very impressed seeing the immense talent pool that the country has,' the director general of CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), the world's premier particle physics laboratory, said.
The Geneva-based organisation had discovered the new sub-atomic particle, possibly the Higgs boson, in July. The Indian scientific community had expressed its displeasure at boson being spelt in lower case while Higgs (after British physicist Peter Higgs) was spelt in the upper case.
'It is really ironical that (Bose) was not given the award. His contribution to science is immense and the absence of a Nobel doesn't in any way undermine his genius or his contribution.
However, we have done our bit by naming the particle after him,' said Heuer. He is in the city to address a two-day international science conference, beginning Monday, organised by the Centre for Natural Sciences and Philosophy and the Critical Issues Forum. On the issue of boson in 'Higgs boson' being in the lower case, he said the bosons were a family of particles so the name was in the lower case. 'The new particle is a member of the boson family. So the name Higgs signifies it as a definitive particle and boson signifies that it belongs to the boson family. We do not have any intention to belittle Bose's contributions,' said Heuer. The city-based Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) had said it would take up the matter with Heuer. About the discovery of Higgs boson, Heuer said there was still some time and more work to be done before it could be successfully concluded that the particle had been discovered.
'We have reached the first step of the ladder and there are more steps to follow. We have set a certain limit which the data significance has to exceed in order to call it a discovery and the signs are very encouraging. It takes a lot of time to say what we have discovered,' he said.
'India is like a historic father of the project. I am really very impressed seeing the immense talent pool that the country has,' the director general of CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), the world's premier particle physics laboratory, said.
The Geneva-based organisation had discovered the new sub-atomic particle, possibly the Higgs boson, in July. The Indian scientific community had expressed its displeasure at boson being spelt in lower case while Higgs (after British physicist Peter Higgs) was spelt in the upper case.
'It is really ironical that (Bose) was not given the award. His contribution to science is immense and the absence of a Nobel doesn't in any way undermine his genius or his contribution.
However, we have done our bit by naming the particle after him,' said Heuer. He is in the city to address a two-day international science conference, beginning Monday, organised by the Centre for Natural Sciences and Philosophy and the Critical Issues Forum. On the issue of boson in 'Higgs boson' being in the lower case, he said the bosons were a family of particles so the name was in the lower case. 'The new particle is a member of the boson family. So the name Higgs signifies it as a definitive particle and boson signifies that it belongs to the boson family. We do not have any intention to belittle Bose's contributions,' said Heuer. The city-based Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) had said it would take up the matter with Heuer. About the discovery of Higgs boson, Heuer said there was still some time and more work to be done before it could be successfully concluded that the particle had been discovered.
'We have reached the first step of the ladder and there are more steps to follow. We have set a certain limit which the data significance has to exceed in order to call it a discovery and the signs are very encouraging. It takes a lot of time to say what we have discovered,' he said.
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