Academic Training turns to matters of science and society

Aseries of lectures about arms control at CERN? Surely some mistake! But there are many reasons why one of the world's most important physics laboratories should consider such weighty political and ethical matters - not least the concern for the issues felt by members of the CERN community. A large number of people followed the full series of lectures on arms control and disarmament by Francesco Calogero, Professor of theoretical physics at Rome's 'La Sapienza' University, demonstrating that CERN people are not only interested in purely scientific matters, but also in the implications for society. Professor Calogero, a former Secretary General of Pugwash1) and currently Chairman of the Pugwash Council, observed that, 'even if I dealt, albeit tersely, with the physical principles on which nuclear weapons are based, the effects of these weapons and the materials essential for their construction, people seemed very interested in the ethical and political aspects of arms control on which I mainly focussed'. Arms control and disarmament treaties aimed at constraining and reducing nuclear arsenals, preventing nuclear weapon proliferation, creating nuclear-weapon-free zones and eventually prohibiting nuclear weapons are some of the topics he explored during his first three lectures; the last two dealt with chemical and biological weapons, and with small arms and light weapons.

The CERN Academic Training lectures committee considers it part of its role to deal with issues of science and society, and Professor Calogero's lecture series was not the first to address such matters. Lectures about global warming, for example, and about genetics have been presented in the past. 'The aim of this kind of lecture is to inform people about matters that have to be approached with a scientific methodology', explains Michelangelo Mangano, organizer of this series. But above all these meetings are a good chance for CERN people to find out in-depth about issues where science has an impact on society.
'I was glad to accept this invitation,' says Professor Calogero, 'because I feel that it is part of my responsibility as a physicist to inform people about the present status of weaponry and the international efforts aimed at their control'. And inform is what he did, covering such topics as arms control from the point of view of international law, the risk of nuclear terrorism and how to address it, the history and status of chemical weapons including the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention that bans them, the nature of biological weapons, and current negotiations aimed at supplementing the Biological Weapons Convention with adequate mechanisms of verification. This latter issue, believes Dr Mangano, is of particular interest to scientists. 'In arms control,' he says, 'there are organisations whose work is to verify if international conventions are observed by all the countries. Physicists are often employed for this kind of scientific consulting. So these lectures can be useful for young scientists to know new fields of application of their knowledge'.
Professor Calogero's lecture series will be made available as a CERN Yellow Report.
The lectures have already been archived and you can access them at: