By Tushna Commissariat
“I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.” Physicist and chemist, Marie Curie.
The arena of physics has long been considered a male domain, but the reality is rather different. In a bid to show this to the world, Geneva’s CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research and the US’s Fermilab - the world’s leading laboratories for particle physics - are celebrating the ever-increasing role of women in physics on International Women’s Day (IWD). This has been celebrated on 8 March each year since 1917.
“At CERN, and in particle physics the world over, talent is the only criterion that counts,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer, adding: “Gender, race and religion have no part to play in finding the right person for the job.”
On Women’s Day, CERN will be doing everything in its power to show how half the engineers who operate the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, are women.
This, they hope, will send out a message inspiring all young women interested in technology and particle physics that they are all welcome in the field as computer scientists, engineers and physicists.
CERN is scheduling shifts so that as many women as possible will be present in the control rooms of the site at the same time, as well as to staff the IT help-desk and guide official visits.
“The fact that we can do this easily may come as a surprise to those who don’t know us better,” said Heuer, “but it’s no surprise to me. Curiosity, the main prerequisite for being a researcher, is a shared characteristic of all humankind and that’s reflected in the CERN community. Men and women from all over the world come here to pursue their research, and the diversity they bring is one of our greatest assets.”
A poster exhibition has been organised with pictures and short bios of all the women involved in different experiments and these will be displayed around CERN.
The National Institute of Nuclear Physics has also sponsored a photographic exhibition titled “The Women who run the biggest machine ever built by Man”- an exhibition that has been making the rounds in many institutions in Italy and other European countries.
The exhibition was conceptualised by science journalist Elisabetta Durante, for the District of Scientific and Technological Information for Innovation, a new institution created to promote scientific culture, and photographed by CERN’s Mike Struik.
According to Durante, Mike’s role was essential to take pictures from the actual underground working environment, which is inaccessible to most people.
At Fermilab in the US, the entire month of March is being celebrated as “Women’s History Month”, through a series of events, discussions, and lunchtime lectures. They are also drawing up profiles of inspiring women from the Fermilab community, and are offering the chance to submit a profile about a deserving woman from the world of physics.
Further information:
IWD at CERN - includes video interviews with some of the women at CERN and the opportunity to watch the Control Rooms Live on the 8th of March.
“The Women who run the biggest machine ever built by Man” exhibition at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics
Women’s History Month at Fermilab.
Slider credit: CERN
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