Engineering student in fundamental science research

Nicholas J. Sammut, a final year engineering student at the University of Malta, was on a Socrates Erasmus Exchange at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), in France this summer. Besides attending lectures by world renowned scientists, Mr Sammut also participated in the construction of the most complex, large-scale and high-precision engineering feat ever attempted.

CERN is a worldwide collaboration whose purpose is non-military fundamental research aimed at understanding the fundamental composition of matter and the nature of interactive forces between particles. This important cutting-edge research has powerful applications in all fields of science ranging from the disciplines of nanotechnology to cosmology.

To gather more data about the properties of particles and their interactions CERN uses powerful particle accelerators and detectors. The new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is 27 km long and is situated in a tunnel 100 m underground spanning under four towns. This massive project was started in 1985, will be completed in 2008 and was commissioned with a budget of ¤2,026 million for materials alone!

Many spin-offs result from the research at CERN the most famous of which is the World Wide Web, which was born there to allow scientists around the world to communicate efficiently. Another spin-off is the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) biomedical machines used for medical diagnosis on thousands of people every day. CERN is also part of the International Space Station (ISS) collaboration participating in the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) project.

Mr Sammut will be organising a seminar on Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Engineering Lecture Theatre (ELT) at the University of Malta in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Systems Software Research Group, and sponsored by the Chamber of Engineers, Maltacom plc and Cherubino Limited. It will tackle the CERN facilities and how this research is useful in Malta. The event is free of charge.

For reservations phone 7959-4696, 2141-9682 or e-mail niksammut@ yahoo.com. Special thanks to the Socrates office and Dr Kevin Vella for their invaluable support.