High-risk physics

摘要

Sitting in a temporary office, Pier Odd-one seems relaxed, even confident ext month, the 60-year-old physicist kes the helm of the leading high-energy physics laboratory in the United States, at a time when the lab's particle accelerator --its raisond'etre -- is scheduled to close within five years. But Oddone is optimistic about the lab's future. "It is a tr emendous oppor tunity to move vigorously in new directions," he says. Oddone will be the fifth director of the Fermi National Accelerator. Laboratory, or Fermilab, a 2,100-person government facility located in Batavia on the edge of the Illinois prairie. The lab is home to the Tevatron — the most powerful particle collider in the world today But within three years or so it will be supplantedby a bigger machine at CERN, the European high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva When that happens, the US government plans to switch off the Tevatron, leaving Fermilab with a very uncertain future.