Industrial Applications Triggered by Fundamental Research: The Case of Particle Physics and CERN

• Serkant Cetin (Istinye University (TR))

***“Understanding the World of Particles and their Impact on New Technologies for the Society”*** For centuries, mankind has pursued various questions like “how the universe was formed”, “how the fundamental forces of nature work”, “what the building blocks of matter are”… The ATLAS experiment, being one of the four main experiments running at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN), has been pushing the boundaries of our knowledge of the universe by seeking answers to these questions since 2009. The ATLAS detector system collects data at the LHC, the world's largest collider, located 100 meters underground in a 27-kilometer tunnel on the Franco-Swiss border at CERN. Subatomic particles are collided and made to interact; the data obtained from these interactions are analyzed by scientists. The ATLAS experiment is run through the collaboration of more than 3000 scientists from approximately 40 countries. The contribution of the Turkish teams in ATLAS is coordinated by Professor Serkant Ali Çetin. At CERN, during this endeavour, countless number of new technologies are also born that serve to invent and innovate new techniques or equipment on a vast range of application areas from health to environment. The seminar by Professor Çetin will take you through this journey of fundamental research to understand our universe and show how this effort helps Society with new technologies. The speaker will also discuss how basic sciences and engineering sciences overlap in the field of physics and why physics is a generic and crucial tool for both professions starting from the high school level.