Hello, and welcome to this episode of the
Physics World Weekly podcast,
which is supported by Atlas Technologies.
This week, our guest is Mark Thompson,
who will be the next director general of
CERN,
the world's leading
particle physics lab and home to the Large
Hadron Collider.
Thompson will begin his 5 year term as
DG
in January
2026.
And in a wide ranging conversation
with physics world's michael banks
he shares his vision of the future of
cern
including
the high luminosity
lhc.
They also chat about long term strategies
for particle physics research,
the challenges
of managing large
international
scientific
organizations,
and about Thomson's
career in particle physics
so far.
This episode is supported by Atlas Technologies.
Atlas custom
aluminum and titanium
vacuum chambers and bimetal
flanges and fittings
are used everywhere
from physics labs to semiconductor
fabs.
And they're built in a fully integrated facility
with on-site design,
development,
and manufacturing
capabilities.
Let Atlas help you solve your next engineering
challenge.
Learn more at atlasuhv.com.
Oh, hi, Mark. So first of all,
congratulations
on becoming the, next director general CERN, which,
you know, is one of the biggest jobs
in particle physics, indeed, if not in all
of physics itself.
So thanks for joining us, to talk about
this exciting new role, which I believe you'll
start in earnest next year,
replacing
current CERN boss, Fabiola Gianotti.
So how about we, maybe we start off
a little bit with a bit about yourself,
your background, your interests in particle physics, and
kind of what positions you've held
and and currently hold.
Yeah. Yeah. No. Very, very happy.
My my background, I guess, is is kind
of slight, slightly unusual route.
I was the 1st person in my family
to go to university.
So that that feels like a very long
time ago.
But my interest in physics and in particle
physics actually started when I was relatively young,
when I was about 14, maybe 13.
And that was actually from reading a popular
textbook
about CERN. I didn't know it was about
CERN at the time. Actually, it was about
particle physics, and that really got me interested
in wanting to understand the universe at a
really fundamental
level.
So that really started my, kind of my,
my journey.
Obviously I turned out to be quite good
at mathematics and physics. So,
which helped.
So I'd say I was the first person
in my family to go to university. I
went to Oxford, studied physics,
and then did a doctorate
in Oxford,
actually on a not on a collider experiment,
but on a, deep underground experiment looking for,
looking at things like cosmic rays, neutrinos,
and possibly
decaying protons. So really interesting. That was in
that was in the US.
And then in, I think it was about
1993,
I
I started working for UCL as a research
fellow.
That was the first time I went to
CERN.
And,
I then
wanted to continue working at CERN, and I
actually got a CERN CERN employment for 6
years working on the large
electron positron collider, which was the predecessor of
the Large Hadron Collider.
Fortunate enough to work on some of the
really big measurements there of the w and
z bosons and electroweak unification. So great, really,
really great time in my life.
Subsequently,
in 2000,
I got a lectureship at the university of
Cambridge,
came back to the UK and and set
up, the Neutrino group there. So this is
a kind of a trans trans, you know,
change in research direction, something I was always
interested in as well.
And that really started my kind of working
relationship with Fermulab as well, the big US
laboratory. So I was working on a long,
a lot a neutrino oscillation experiment, firing a
beam from Fermulab near Chicago
to Minnesota, which is exactly where my old
experiment was when I was a PhD student.
So that was,
that was, that was a good time.
Over the last 20 years,
at, you know, working for Cambridge, I, I,
I kind of oscillated between,
collider physics and neutrino physics, and sometimes doing
both in parallel.
Probably the biggest, biggest step forward was in
about 2030,
2015
when I became
spokesperson
of the deep underground neutrino experiment. That's the
US
mega science project for neutrinos.
Really fascinating, really challenging and ambitious project.
And then in 2018,
I was appointed as the executive chair of
the science and technology facilities council.
So that's part of UK research and innovation.
It's
a unusual
kind of funding agency. It funds particle physics
and astronomy in the UK.
But it also has very strong international
engagement,
runs the relay like, kind of, maintains the
relationship with organizations such as CERN Square Kilometre
Array Observatory
there's a long list.
But also runs some of the UK's biggest,
national infrastructure. So the the big multidisciplinary
facilities at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Dyersbury Laboratory.
So in that role, it was both strategic
funding of particle physics and astronomy, but actually
also running a very large scientific organization
with about 2,222,800
scientific and technical and engineering staff.
So that was,
if you like very good preparation
for, the role I'm about to start start
in in 1 year's time. So that's kind
of the the the journey I the journey
I took to get to where I am
today.
So you mentioned that, of course, managing some,
you know, big international labs. So what was
it in particular that interested you about becoming,
CERN director general?
It's a really it's an interesting one. I
I don't think there was ever a moment
where I just said, oh, I must I
must do this.
I mean, I I mean, as I said,
I've I've for a very long time, I've
had a passion for particle physics. I mean,
this and and of course, CERN is such
an important part of the global particle physics
landscape.
I've also worked here. I've I've spent 6
years on CERN council, so I know the
organization.
So it's the combin combination of the science,
which is incredible
knowing the organization. And then the experience I
kind of built up over the last,
6 and a bit years, actually running very
well, actually beyond that. In fact, firstly, a
big scientific collaboration.
And then actually running a big science organization.
And And at that point, I realized I
kind of had all of the all of
the tools, all of the tools to do
the job,
the right experience, I believe. And I think
I do have the right experience.
And Stern has just, you know, been a
big part of my life for many, many
years. So just a fantastic opportunity for me.
And and when you actually then were it
was announced early November that you, you know,
would become next,
send director general. I mean, what were your
kind of first thoughts when you when you
heard the news?
I suppose strange I suppose strange this answer
is a strange one. I actually can't remember.
It's one of the it's one of these
things where I it, you know, it kind
of sunk in, but it didn't really sink
in until the evening, actually.
I think my first thoughts were more around,
well, okay, that's I'm obviously very happy, and
that's fantastic, but it was almost,
what happens now? What what what yeah. What's
gonna happen in the next 5 minutes?
So it's kinda, yeah, it's quite a quite
a surreal moment, actually, kind of a you
know? So I was I was sitting hidden
away at CERN somewhere. So
What does your role in entail now then?
So I believe you'll be kinda your CERN
director general designate. So you is it kind
of a shadowing kind of role you have
for for for almost a year? No. I
mean, it's it's it's it's a really I
think it's a really, really good,
good way of making,
a transition to an into a new role
like this because it's a complex role.
There'll be a little as a little bit
of shadowing, but it's not, you know, it's
not the you can't shadow someone for the
next, you know, for a year. That doesn't
make very much sense.
But what I really have to do is,
well, first really understand the organization,
how it works from the inside,
what's the organizational structures, how how do things
actually happen, and of course, get to know
the people, get to know the, the the
the fantastic CERN staff. And that's kind of
what I've already started, started doing. So,
a lot of my time at the moment
is meeting, meeting with people and just talking
about, you know, how things, how things are
operating. So that's a big,
big part of this year.
I also have the opportunity to think about
what I might want to change in terms
in terms of the structure, nothing, you know,
and you don't do things too radical radically,
but,
just having a look at where I think
maybe we can make things work better.
So that's certainly part of it.
And then there's putting in place the team
that will work with me,
from January. So that's, that's quite a big
chunk of work, actually, just understand and getting
to know the people, thinking about how, how,
how I want, how I want to actually
run the organization.
And the second aspect, which is gonna play
a big, big part of this year is,
the European particle physics community,
roughly every 7 years runs a process called
the European strategy
for particle physics,
which is a very strong bottom up community
led
process,
where the European particle physics community actually thinks
about future strategy.
And that process is going to actually happen
throughout this year, so
that's gonna be a big part of big
part of this year's work as well, engaging
very strongly with our strategy process, which is
interesting and great fun, actually. So so that's
broadly what I'll be doing what I'll be
doing this year. So those those two two
key aspects.
Mhmm. You touched on it a little bit
in your in your previous answer answer, but
it and it sometimes feels a little bit
like with the certain director general position. It's
a little bit like Doctor Who, you know,
every every so often, you know, Doctor Who
kind of regenerates into into someone into someone
else.
I mean, what do you think your kind
of leadership style may be as you take
up take up the role?
I mean, obviously, you know, the past 6
6 plus years, I've been in major leadership
roles. And I and I think I think
the thing I
what I like to do, I firstly, I
like to put put around me a very
strong leadership team,
and then
be willing and genuinely delegate and trust the
leadership
team to deliver the kind of straight you
know, I'm I'm there to help set the
strategic direction,
but actually to empower them to deliver. So
that's that's one aspect.
And I think the advantage of that is
it gives,
will give me in a leadership role,
the opportunity to take a really, a more
outward focused and actually engage with the member
states.
Obviously promote CERN around the member states,
and
talk to the communities in the member states
as well. So that's, that's part of it.
So it's really delegating and trusting the leaders
leadership team.
And in general,
what I want to do, and I think
my leadership style is to put in place,
I think culture is culture is a very
difficult word, but it is, it really is
a culture where the staff are empowered, because
CERN has brilliant
scientific staff, and they're brilliant people, brilliant engineers,
and brilliant technical staff.
And I certainly want to ensure that the
culture at CERN is is where those people
can really thrive,
and actually have have, you know, that enough
freedom where where they can
really, you know, bring bring that that brilliance
to the forefront and actually support the mission
of CERN. So that's part of it.
I think the other the other bit, in
terms of leadership, it's really again, it's a
cultural thing. I'm I mean, I I tend
to operate in a very open and transparent
way, and that's very I think that's very
important to me because I think what that
does is it builds up
builds up trust within
both within the organization, but actually within all
of the organization's
partners.
And CERN being an international organization, it's a
very complex landscape, with 24
member states, associate member states. And so,
so that's PassFit. And I, and I think
the final,
the final thing really that I'm, I'm
absolutely,
100% behind is the,
include you being an inclusive organization. And that,
that can mean many, many different things. And
that's, certainly going to be part of, part
of my focus. What can I do to
make CERN
even more inclusive? Because actually CERN is, it
is a, you know, the the culture at
CERN is just wonderful. You walk around the
cafeteria,
young people from many different countries, all getting
on working to, you know, because everybody's here
to pursue a common goal. And it's a,
it's, it's just a wonderful inspiring environment.
And hopefully that gives you some kind of
sense of
style, and the style is always a difficult
one to characterise.
I mean, CERN also being being CERN director
general is also a very public role. You
know, lots of media interviews such as this
one, for example.
You know, is that something you enjoy doing,
you know, the how how will you kind
of deal with that very public facing kind
of aspect to the role?
I mean, it's something I've had a a
reasonable amount of experience in in my last
my last role, particularly in my last two
roles, in fact. That's something I really enjoy.
So it's not a it's not a burden
at all. So it's great talking to people
like you,
and it's great talking to the press.
And I also I mean, one of the
things I also enjoy is, very, very much
actually is when I go out and speak
to either the public or to
the scientific community is actually engaging in, you
know, q and a type sessions and being
as open as you possibly can. You can
have a there's always things you have to
be a bit careful about, but, but I
actually really, really enjoy that engagement. So it's
something I, you know, really I like a
lot. And, you know, it's a it's a
to me, it's an actual real positive aspect
to the role.
And just moving on a little bit in
terms of challenges, you know, recently,
a few days ago, the news came out
that Liam Mominga,
the director of the US Particle Physics Lab,
Fermilab, had stepped down following, you know, challenges
with cost overruns of certain facilities as well
as as well as, you know, cultural staff
issues as well. You know, I wonder if
you could just say something a little bit
about what are some of the challenges, you
know, managing such a large lab such as
CERN?
Yeah. I can't certainly can't comment. I mean,
I don't know the circumstances around, Leah's resignation.
But,
I mean, I think there are 2 aspects.
I mean, large organize I mean, there there
are big differences the way, I mean, CERN
has a
24 member states. So that so one of
the challenges, there are 24 member states and,
managing,
working with the member states to ensure that
CERN is
also delivering what the each of the member
states wants is really important. So I think
that is one of the challenges, that relationship
with the member states. And ultimately it's the,
taxpayers in the member states that are paying
for CERN. So that's really critical. So I
think
that's a layer of complexity.
CERN
has been running for now 70 years. It's
just over 70 years old, celebrated its birthday
in October.
It's a really incredible organization in terms of
the,
technical and engineering heritage and all of the
expertise
that lives with inside the organization. So it's
a very, very strong organization because of that,
because there's so much expertise.
Now the challenge is,
the CERN
challenges in the next, 5, 6 years.
So one of the things we're doing at
the moment is we're we are building the
high luminosity
LHC.
So it's part upgrade, but actually, it's a
big big step up in capability, and that's
a major complex project. So there's
a there's a let's deliver this project and
get it on time and, obviously, deliver it
on budget. But, again, building on all that
expertise that exists at CERN.
And the other the other big thing that's
on the agenda,
the HiLumi LHC will run from about 2030
to 20
early 20 forties. It's gonna be an absolutely
brilliant brilliant
step up in, CERN's capability.
We do have to take a decision on
what happens after the HiLumio LHC, so in
the mid 20 forties.
Seems like a long way off, but these
projects, you know, by the time you've decided
what you wanted to do, designed,
planned, you need
a 20 year
lead in.
So that is gonna be a big, big
part of the coming few years, actually deciding
based on the scientific views of the community,
what's the right thing for CERN to do,
and then actually putting that project in place.
So that those are the 2, I would
say, the 2 the 2 big, big challenges.
And and CERN, maybe we could speak a
little bit then about the high luminosity LHC.
So SEND is currently shut down in terms
of upgrading to that facility. So,
what does that entail in terms of the
actual accelerator complex, upgrading
certain aspects of it?
So, actually, at the moment, we're just in
a kind of kind of a normal a
normal shutdown, just year end shutdown.
But but but but in a year's time
in a year's time or so, then,
that, you know, the the the shutdown really
start starts in earnest.
So
what the the the goal for the Hi
Lumi LHC,
is to increase the increase the brightness of
the machine. It's something we call luminosity, but
it basically means,
you get more, more bang for your buck.
You don't, get more energy,
but you get more interaction. So you make
many more Higgs bosons, for example, than you
did before. So it's a very, very big
step up in that capability.
And to do that, what you have to
do is you have to,
manipulate the beams. So we, we have these
proton beams that are circulating the machine
and squeeze them, squeeze them down even, even
more finely right at where they interact
in the experiments.
That involves very, very complex,
even more powerful superconducting
magnets.
I had had the chance to actually see
the, the test facility that's been constructed for
that,
just before Christmas, in fact. So this is
actually a big chunk of the it's not
it's not the ring of the accelerator, it's
the the the straight bits that actually bring
the protons that are cruising around the ring
into collision at the at the experiments,
using some very, very advanced technology. It's a
it's a really technically challenging
challenging,
project. But the the sign the scientific benefits
are are it's really exciting, hence.
I mean, could you elaborate a little bit
on the scientific benefits of what, you know,
what might might be So the the way
the way I like to look at it,
by the end of the LHC running, not
the HiLumie LHC, but the LHC,
we will have essentially taken about 10% of
the overall dataset once you add. So it's
10 times more data. That's one thing. That
that's a lot. That's so really are right
at the start of the journey.
We're also or the scientific communities are also
upgrading the experiments, so they're making the detect
a very, very big detector
even more precise. So every time you see
something in one of these new upgraded detectors,
you get a bit more information out of
it, more physics.
And the other thing that really excites me
is, you know, the scientific community is incredibly
imaginative.
And, in in particle physics, we've always tended
to be early adopters of new technologies.
So things like artificial I mean, real artificial
intelligence
are being used now.
And,
you know, the, the, the, the, indications are
that that's gonna give you a huge step
up in
capability. So you've got 10 times more data,
better detectors, and better techniques.
So that can do a huge amount. So
we're gonna make more precise measurements that you
never know, you may see something that doesn't
doesn't work.
There's a very specific measurement that we would
like to make around the,
the the nature of the Higgs mechanism.
There's something very special about the Higgs boson
that it has
has a very strange vacuum potential, so it's
kind of always there in the vacuum.
With the high lumen LHC, we're gonna start
to study the structure of that potential. That's
a really, really fundamental measurement and actually a
really exciting measurement.
Right on, well, no, we we'll be able
to do it, but it but it a
few years ago, I wasn't sure we'd be
able to make that measurement. No. So that
can't that isn't possible with the current l
l h c. No. No. You need you
need the you need the data and you
also need the benefits of all of these
tools as well. But that really is probing
in some ways the structure of the vacuum.
It's a really important, really, really important measurement,
and that's it's also a place where we
might start to see
new physics.
And the final thing with the, you know,
10 times more data, better detectors, better techniques,
this is a discovery machine.
And really are the genuine discovery opportunities. And,
sometimes people always ask me, you know, what
what what do you hope to discover? And,
I don't know. I mean, that's the whole
point. I mean, it's really this so it's
not just do the great measurement,
study the Higgs, we'll do that, but then
there's the this opportunity to discover
the the as as of yet unknown. So
it's I think it's a really exciting
really exciting program.
And so when it comes beyond the high
luminosity LHC,
looking kind of at the next collider,
so the community seems set on a so
called Higgs factory, so a machine that would
generate copious amounts of Higgs bosons.
But there's kind of it seems like there's
not so much of an international consensus about
what that might entail,
you know, whether it's a linear collider or
there's a circular collider
like the LHC. I mean, Sone seems to
have put its weight behind the future circular
collider, so this is be a huge
91 kilometre
circumference circular
machine, and that will be based
near the LHC.
And but it also seems to come with
an eye eye watering cost of about 12,000,000,000,
I believe, for the electron, electron
positron version of that.
Do you do you kind of see your
job as a director general now as being,
you know, securing funding for that machine?
Yeah. So it's, I mean the I mean
you're right. I mean the the I think
the consensus amongst the scientific community for a
number of years has been that the next
machine has to be the machine that,
explores
this thing we call the Higgs boson,
which there's always a temptation, oh, it's just
another particle, and it's not it's not at
all. It's a completely different type of matter,
unique. We've not seen anything like it ever,
and it has some very, very strange properties,
including the fact that it it's kind of
always the field
is always there in the vacuum. That's really,
really weird.
So the scientific
imperative to actually we've discovered something completely new.
Let's go and really understand it
and see, see if it is what we
think it is.
So the motivation for Higgs factory, I think
is incredibly strong.
You're right. The choice is a linear the
choices of doing that are a linear linear
collider or a large circular collider.
My personal view,
is that the circular collider option gives you
by, you know, significantly
more capability.
You you make more Higgs bosons basically.
The
the price tag is significant as you said,
exact number to be, you know, there's a
study going up at the moment to to
actually pin down pin down the cost.
And these numbers always sound very large, but,
of course,
in some sense, these are, I
mean, I think you mentioned 12, let's say,
you have somewhere between 12 15,000,000,000
depending on what you actually include in the
number
that's spread over 15 years,
24 member states
looking for contrib significant contributions from outside Europe.
So the, the actual
number is large, but but,
it's also
spread over a long period of time,
contributions coming from many places.
And
I think the other thing to remember, there
is just one CERN in the world. It's
not as if we have multiple CERNs and
they're all, you know, we're we're asking for
large amounts of money all of the time.
We're really just doing, you know, the global
community comes comes in
behind something and we do something really spectacular.
But of it but it I'm not saying
it's gonna be easy to actually secure
that jigsaw puzzle of resources because money will
will need to come from outside Europe as
well. And that will be one of yeah.
Will be one of my,
assuming the European strategy indicates that this is
the 3rd route, which, as I say, I
for for me, it is.
I think the the scientific arguments are are
very strong.
Then that would that would be certainly a
significant part of the work over the the
coming coming few years.
And why do you think,
you know, things have cooled a little bit
when it comes to linear designs? I mean,
if you go back 10 or 15 years,
it seems like the linear collider was a
proposal that many were kind of following, you
know, the ILC, the International Linear Collider project
in Japan, for example.
What's your kind of opinion on on that?
So I I think there's,
there was a opportunity, I think, actually back
in about 2004 with the Tesla collider. That
was a linear collider potentially was that was
going to be considered to be hosted at
Germany.
That would have been a very good time
to build that, because then then we would
have had the LHC and the in the
International Linear Collider running in parallel, both looking
at the Higgs boson.
Now where we are today,
the the choice almost the choice you have
between linear and circular,
A circular collider,
we know we know how to build these
things.
So there's a if you like, there's, I
would say, probably lower technological risk.
And the big advantage is the beams go
round and round and round and round and
keep colliding, and so you accelerate them once.
So you get a lot of what we
call luminosity. So we make many more Higgs
bosons in a circular collider than we could
do in a linear collider.
The advantage of a linear collider is you
can potentially go to somewhat higher energies.
Now that perhaps the scientific,
arguments for doing that nowadays seem weaker than
they were about 10, 15 years ago going
up from that step
of
making Higgs bosons to getting a bit more
energy.
So for me, that's
the clear difference.
And I think
that's why from a scientific perspective, the future,
future circular collider looks so attractive.
And I think the other the other thing
I would say about the future circular collider
is,
the tunnel itself is a, you know, significant
part of the cost, 91 kilometers.
That is a piece of research infrastructure that
will be there for many years beyond
the electron positron collider.
And personally, and again, this is a personal,
personal viewpoint.
At some point in the future, we are
gonna want a very, very high energy hadron
collider to really to explore
the unknown. I mean, it really is an
exploration machine.
Building the FCC electron positron collider puts in
place that infrastructure that could could in the
future be be used to do that as
well. So
many, many I mean, there are many arguments
for going down going down this route, and
that will be a big part of the
discussion around the European strategy for particle physics.
I wonder if I could also ask you
about, China,
because they're also considering,
as I understand, a huge Higgs factory, the
so called circular
electron positron collider.
You know, some say
may be approved in the next few years,
maybe 2027,
built potentially in the 2030s, and then you're
also these are all figures, of course.
But that potential timescale is is much before
potentially
the the FCC would be built, even potentially
approved. And is that something you're keeping an
eye on? You know, what would happen if
China did go ahead with the CEPC?
What, you know, what what would the implications
be then for the FCC, for example? No.
I think and I think that will be
part of this European strategy for particle physics
process to think about the ifs and the
buts.
Of course, nothing has really been decided in
China.
It's a big project. It might not go
ahead.
And it's, you know, I would say it's
quite easy to put down aggressive
past timescales
on paper,
but actually delivering them, is always is always
harder. And I think the big
the big advantage CERN has and all and
always will have, at least for the foreseeable
future, is that 70 years of scientific and
engineering heritage
in building colliders and operating them. You know,
this is the place in the world we
do that.
I think that's gonna be an interesting question
for the scientific community and,
the the funding agencies around Europe if we
do get into that position.
But it's it's it's it's quite, you know,
it's a complex landscape and, there are there
are no certain no certainties there.
And what do you also you make of,
alternative technologies that kind of coming up recently?
I'm thinking here,
for example, with muon colliders,
you know, which offer the potential,
in the future to build, like, a much
smaller
collider, something that may fit, for example, in
the LHC tunnel.
What what'd you make of that?
I mean, the muon collider idea is not
new. In fact, there's been, there've been various,
programs at different times. There's a big program
in the US, called the muon accelerator, acceleration
program or accelerator program,
sort of a little while back.
I think it's an interesting concept, an interesting
idea.
Technically, we don't know how to do it,
or we would there's a lot of development
work, a lot of r and d to
do.
So looking at a muon collider on the
timescale of
the mid 20 forties is probably not realistic.
And one of the things I think is
really critical for an organization
like CERN and critical for global particle physics
is that when the LHC stops in the
early 20 forties,
there's not a very, very large gap without
a, if you like, forefront,
collider project.
So, yes, it's interesting.
Lots of technological challenges, but the timescales are
kind of, you know, I I won't make
up a number because I generally don't know.
And I think there are some other technical
challenges,
with the invite the the detectors and the
environment because muons are particles that decay,
and they're all gonna be going through the
detectors decaying, and it's it's quite quite a
difficult environment to do science. But it's it's
interesting, and and the US in particular in
the recent,
their
kind of decadal review process, their p five
process.
I mean, that that is out there to
do some r and d's, start to develop
re
re reignite,
that idea, but it but it's gonna take
a long time to turn that into a
real machine.
Excellent. Well,
finally, just one long one last question.
You know, last year, of course, as you
mentioned before in in some of your previous
answers, CERN celebrated its 7th its anniversary.
I don't know if you wanna kind of
have a prediction of what
particle physics might look like in the next
70 years, you know, if you kind of
look to the future in 20 80, 20
90.
That's a that's a great one. It's really
interesting because I I gave, I gave a
a talk, recently.
It was kind of just a it was
a introduction to a conference and I basically
said, well, this is my personal view of
what what's interesting.
What, what down the road, what, what are
we gonna discover? Now might, what might we
discover? Because we don't know.
And I look back at the, you know,
the big discoveries we've made over the last,
say, 30 years.
And some of these people didn't really expect
neutrino oscillations as one, neutrinos having mass. That
that was kind of 1998 when that was
nailed down. The Higgs boson,
completely new type of matter. Yeah. Incredible discovery.
In fact,
gravitational waves
and dark energy.
That's 4 big discovery. I mean, really big.
I mean, these are all massive discoveries.
Of course, the hope is that, you know,
once a decade, once every, you know, it's
gonna it is that time scale to make
the really big discoveries. I I think we
will,
at some point, know what dark matter is,
and that could be through the collider program.
It could be through the LHC.
There are questions about neutrinos, so the big
experiments in the year the US and Japan,
they are going to answer in 10 years.
So we are gonna know more about the
nature of the neutrino. I'm that's almost certain.
As I said before, the Hi Lumi LHC,
I think there's huge discovery potential there. Don't
know what it'll be.
Could be something completely unknown. There are so
many
you know, we have a beautiful model of
the universe,
but we also have so many fundamental questions
that we don't know why it's quite like
that.
And if you can start to tick off
1 or 2 of those, these are all
really massive discoveries.
And then there's the Higgs boson itself.
Something
completely unlike anything we've seen before is a
fundamental particle. I could go for a long
list of questions.
Is it a fundamental particle, for example?
What's what are the the kind of dynamics
of the Higgs meck meck I'm sure we
will we will we will understand
what what the Higgs boson really is in
in more detail.
Of course, you know, the big the big
hope is you find something you don't expect
to find and that does, you know, that
happens. And,
that's part of the long term, you know,
the long term nature of many of the
big science here. It's not just particle physics,
it's cosmology. You know, these
experiments, we are really pushing the boundaries,
doing really exciting science.
And ultimately, you know, we we we we
we hope
for breakthroughs and discoveries. But there are a
few things I think are pretty much guaranteed
in the next 10, 15 years that will
really push forward our knowledge.
Well, that's great. Well, thanks, Mark. Many thanks
for coming on to the podcast, and, best
of luck as you prepare for this, new
important role. No problem at all. Thank you.
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this episode of the Physics World Weekly
podcast,
which is supported
by Atlas Technologies.
Thanks to Mark Thompson and Michael Banks for
a fascinating
conversation
about CERN, the LHC,
and the future of particle physics.
And a special thanks to our producer,
Fred Iles.
We'll be back again next week. But in
the meantime,
do check out the latest episode of the
Physics World Stories podcast,
which looks back a century
to the birth of modern
quantum theory.
In 1925,
the physicist
Werner Heisenberg
holidayed on the German island of Helgoland
seeking respite
from his pollen allergy.
There, he formulated
matrix mechanics,
which provided a mathematical
framework
for describing
the curious
observations
of quantum physics.
This June,
physicists will gather on Helgoland
for a 6 day workshop
that will celebrate
Heisenberg's
historic
breakthrough.
The podcast features 3 physicists
who are involved with the workshop.
They share their insights
on the current state of quantum science and
technology,
discussing the latest developments
in quantum sensing,
quantum information,
and quantum computing.
They also reflect on the significance of attending
a conference
at a location
that's so deeply ingrained
in the story of quantum mechanics.
Talks at the event
will span the science
and the history of quantum theory as well
as the nature of scientific
revolutions.
You can listen to the stories podcast
on the Physics World website
or at your favorite podcast provider.
That episode is called Helgoland,
leading physicists
to gather on the tiny island where quantum
mechanics was born.
Atlas Technologies is happy to support this episode
and the exciting work being done at CERN.
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