CERN receives prestigious Milestone recognition from IEEE

At a ceremony on 26 September at the Globe of Science and Innovation, Mr W. Cleon Anderson, President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) formally dedicated Milestone plaques recognising the invention of electronic particle detectors at CERN. The plaque were unveiled by Mr Anderson and Georges Charpak, the Nobel-prize winning inventor of wire chamber technology at CERN in 1968.

The IEEE is the world's largest professional association dedicated to the advancement of technology with 365,000 individual members in over 150 countries. Established in 1983, there are currently over 60 Milestones around the world. They honour momentous achievements in the history of electrical and electronics engineering, such as the landing of the first transatlantic cable, code breaking at Bletchley Park during World War II, and the development of the Japanese Bullet train, the Tokaido Shinkansen
'It has been my pleasure to have participated in seven of these Milestones,' said Mr Anderson at the event, adding that all have brought important advances to humanity.

Georges Charpak's 1968 invention of the multi-wire proportional chamber paved the way for new discoveries in particle physics and made it possible to increase the rate of data collection by a factor of a thousand. The significance of this was underlined by Walter Le Croy, founder of the company that bears his name, who said that Charpak's invention had 'transformed the world of the electronics developer.'

Charpak, who in 1992 received the Nobel Prize in physics for his invention, has also actively contributed to the use of this new type of detector in various applications in medicine and biology. The value of fundamental research institutes such as CERN in fostering such innovation was a recurring theme of the ceremony.

'CERN's reputation is based on fundamental research,' said the Laboratory's Director-General, Robert Aymar, 'but the Organization is also an important source of new technologies. In our work we need instruments based more and more on electronics, so a tight collaboration worldwide in this field is beneficial to science. In turn the developments in our science feed back into industry and in the end they appear in your home.'

The point was underlined by Charpak himself, who stressed the importance of intellectual freedom saying, 'CERN was a fantastic place because of the freedom I had, which permitted me to do a lot of things that were unexpected.'