Patil visits CERN, praises contribution Indian scientists

From Snehesh Alex Philip
Geneva, Oct 1 (PTI) India's President Pratibha Patil
Saturday visited the prestigious France-based European
Organisation for Nuclear Research, commonly known as CERN,
where she patted Indian scientists for their contributions to
cutting edge research work.
Patil, who is on a state visit to Switzerland, drove to
CERN that is situated just minutes away from the Swiss border.
An inquisitive Patil, who was left mesmerised by the
centre known for its cutting edge research work in physics,
left CERN's Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer pondering for
answers on many occasions.
Patil took a round of the centre and went 70 metres
underground to take a first-hand look at the 27-km long
tunnel, where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment was
conducted recently.
The experiment had aimed to recreate the conditions of
the Big Bang, when the universe is thought to have exploded
into existence about 14 billion years ago.
The President visit to the centre began with a powerpoint
presentation on India's contribution to the entire project.
"I am impressed by this global collaborative effort at
CERN, which is working to solve the fundamental issues of
physical science and which has the potential of having
positive spin offs for mankind," she said.
"I am also proud at the continuing contributions of
Indian scientists here," the president told PTI.
The focus of the visit was the ALICE project, one of the
largest experiment in the world devoted to the research in the
physics of matter at an infinitely small scale, particular,
for the study of Quark Gluon Plasma in the laboratory.
When CERN's chief Heuer claimed that by next year the
European nuclear research centre would be able to get to the
truth about Higgs Boson, a hypothetical massive elementary
particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model (SM) of
particle physics, Patil was keen to know how it would benefit
the future of mankind.
The president also asked a number of questions on global
warming and how to make energy cheap and affordable.
Indians have contributed greatly to the project not only
in terms of scientific knowledge but also with a host of
electronic gadgets.
The entire structure for the project, which has an
Indian-made 8,000 tonnes magnet and millions of circuits, took
20 years to be constructed.
Patil also interacted with Indians scientists and
research students at the Centre where work has been halted
since Friday night so as to make it radiation-free for the
president's visit.
Patil arrived here yesterday on an official visit to
Switzerland where she will stay till October 4 and then travel
to Austria for a state visit from October 4 to 7.
The President is accompanied by a 45-member business
delegation led by former FICCI President and Chairman of Modi
Enterprises K K Modi, Minister of State for Parliamentary
Affairs Rajiv Shukla, Members of Parliament Vijay Jawaharlal
Darda, Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav and Chinta Mohan. PTI SAP
HMI