Dissertation committee:
Θεόδωρος Αραμπατζής (Επιβλέπων καθηγητής), Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, ΕΚΠΑ,
Κώστας Γαβρόγλου, Ομότιμος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, ΕΚΠΑ,
Αριστοτέλης Τύμπας, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, ΕΚΠΑ,
Ευστάθιος Αραποστάθης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, ΕΚΠΑ,
Γεώργιος Βλαχάκης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Σχολή Ανθρωπιστικών Σπουδών, Ελληνικό Ανοικτό Πανεπιστήμιο,
Κώστας Ταμπάκης, Κύριος Ερευνητής, Τομέας Νεοελληνικών Ερευνών, Eθνικό Ίδρυμα Eρευνών,
Μανώλης Πλειώνης, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Φυσικής, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
Summary:
This dissertation investigates the planning phase of one of the most emblematic scientific instruments ever built, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The focus of this investigation is the period from 1984, when the idea for the LHC first took shape, to 2000, when the project entered its construction stage. By opening the “black box” of the design and realization process of an instrument of such scale, we can observe the important changes that take place with regard to scientific goals, technical specifications and the rhetoric revolving around it, but also how the above are intertwined with the radical shifts in the wider historical context. By attempting, then, to reapproach the history of High Energy Physics (HEP) through the lens of scientific instrumentation and its material culture, many interesting aspects of the scientific process come to light, and the question of why and how a scientific instrument is made, within the framework of Big Science, can be answered in novel, interesting ways. The thesis begins by studying how the idea for the construction of the LHC was initially conceived as the “European answer” to the enormous SSC (Superconducting Super Collider), that was planned to be built in the US. Despite the fact that, at the time, it was not yet clear what its scientific goals would be, the prospect of the LHC became very important, as it was closely linked with the very existence, in the future, of both CERN and the European HEP community. That is why, despite the fact that the SSC project greatly surpassed the LHC on an energy scale, the European organization’s leadership did not abandon this endeavor. On the contrary, by presenting the LHC as an experimental infrastructure that would be complementary to the SSC, and with the support of the European high technology industry and states, it managed to keep the prospect alive, by rallying the European HEP community around it. A new status quo would arise in the aftermath of the Cold War. In 1993, the SSC project, crumbling under the weight of its exorbitant cost and the radical sociopolitical shifts, would be cancelled. In contrast, the LHC would increase its dynamic, by integrating, initially, countries from the former Eastern Bloc and later, from the entire world. In this way, CERN’s leadership, taking advantage of the wider socio-political developments -a new European integration and the rising globalization- and the fact that the LHC was now the sole prospect of HEP communities across the globe, presented the collider as a “world machine”. From this perspective, the LHC would also serve as an exemplar of global collaborations in the new era. This investigation concludes with another plot twist, that took place just before the LHC entered its final stage. More specifically, in 2000, the LHC had been scheduled to take the place of another collider at CERN, LEP (Large Electron-Positron). Since they would be using the same tunnel, LEP had to cease operations and be disassembled. In the fall of 2000, however, LEP’s experimentalists detected strong indications for an exceptionally important discovery, that of the Higgs boson. They, therefore, asked CERN’s leadership for an extension of the operation of the collider by a few months, in order to be able to investigate the data in depth. The CERN Directorate, despite recognizing the scientific importance of such an extension, decided, nonetheless, to shut down LEP, fearing the complete derailment of the LHC, which was facing immense financial pressure. The conflict that broke out around this matter, between the experimental community and CERN’s leadership, is another indicative case of how the worlds of physics, diplomacy and finance were intertwined, within the context of Big Science.
Keywords:
History of Physics, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN, Big Science, High Energy Physics (HEP), Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider, science diplomacy, Higgs boson, material culture, scientific instruments, European Integration
