Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer - Director-General of CERN
Tomorrow Today (DW-TV's Science Magazine) interviewed Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director-General of CERN. Below is an excerpt from the Interview.
DW-TV: The 19th of September in the last year was a black day at CERN. How dramatic is actually the break.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: The break is dramatic in terms of time because it took a bit more than one year to do everything. But it's not dramatic in the sense of spirit. The spirit is very high. But what we had to do was, first of all we had to repair the damage, secondly we had to measure all the other connections in order to be sure that something like this could be avoided again, and thirdly we had to install a lot of new electronics, cabling, et cetera. And all this together takes more than one year, but then we are pretty sure to start up safely.
DW-TV: Which is a long time: one year. Since also physicists in America, in Chicago, are also searching for the Higgs boson. Are you afraid they might outpace you?
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: No, I'm not afraid of this, because if I look only on science, I don't care where things are found first, and secondly, even if they find something, they only can find indications, and only LHD can tell you if there's really something, and thirdly, when we switch on in November, after one year we will have the same discovery potential or even better than our friendly competitors in the US.
DW-TV: But you're not only a scientist, you're also the director-general of CERN. So how important is it to find the Higgs boson if there is a Higgs boson actually here at CERN?
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: I think it would be very important, it would be a huge stimulus for CERN, that's clear. But it would be even more important of the progress of particle physics and the progress of research, fundamental research in general. So it would be very important.
DW-TV: But wouldn't it be also maybe kind of boring? Because if you find a Higgs boson, all you do is confirm the standard model of elementary particles, and so to say, you'd have no surprise.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: I'm pretty sure that the surprise is outside the standard model, you are right. We would confirm the standard model, but the standard model can only be a model which is only valid for our energy region. If you go beyond our energy, much beyond our energy range, then there must be another model which incorporates the standard model but which goes further, like, for example, supersymmetry.
DW-TV: So physics as we think today is still correct whether we find the Higgs or whether we don't find it?
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: Yes, of course, because we have measured it, and so it's correct. And compare it to Newton's mechanics, do you feel anything from the relativistic mechanics?
DW-TV: No, not very much.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: Because you are not in that velocity range. You can compare the standard model to a range within a certain energy limit, and then the new model beyond that, like the different between Newton and Einstein's.
DW-TV: CERN and the new collider is not only a big hit with physicists, but also with authors and film directors ... even scientist argued that the LHC might trigger a dangerous black hole, a gravitational field, so strong nothing can escape.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer: I would not be happy if we would find it in only one of the detectors, because I always need confirmation -- I need it in both detectors. I need confirmation. But these black holes have nothing to do with the black holes which you have in astronomy, in the universe. These black holes would be micro black holes, which would be produced at the LHC and then immediately decay again. This is according to all the existing theories, including the theories from Stephen Hawking.
Read the whole Interview
(Interview Ingolf Baur)
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