Director's Corner

25 May 2006

Barry Barish

Einstein's Telescope
 

One of the most intriguing features of the ILC is its potential to act as a telescope to "explore energies a trillion times that of the accelerator itself, in the ultrahighenergy realm where physicists believe that all of nature's forces become one." Einstein spent much of his career trying to develop such a description of nature in a unified field theory, and we still seek such an understanding today.

I encourage our readers to get a copy or download a copy of "Discovering the Quantum Universe: The Role of Particle Colliders," a newly released publication and a companion piece to "The Quantum Universe," which was a very successful overview of the key questions in particle physics and astrophysics. I admit to being one of the authors of this new document, which is a popular exposition of the science of high energy particle colliders.

Supersymmetry (SUSY) - a conjectured new symmetry in nature that could be key to the unification of the forces

It is the fantastic science potential that excites us and motivates us to develop the new generation of particle colliders (LHC and ILC). We probably cannot even imagine what will be the most important science we will learn by exploring this new energy regime with such powerful instruments. Even so, "Discovering the Quantum Universe" explores some of our leading ideas by describing three main themes, "Mysteries of the Terascale," "Light on Dark Matter," and "Einstein's Telescope."

As we strive to uncover the fascinating science within these themes, it is fitting to keep in mind a well-known quote from Einstein, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." Happy reading!

-- Barry Barish