CERN’s light guide sold for a good cause

On 26 March, a light guide donated by CERN received the lion’s share at a prestigious Sotheby’s auction in favour of the WISH foundation (Women in Science and Humanities).

The WISH foundation, created by EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) professors, with the support of the Lombard-Odier bank, is aimed at promoting women’s careers in science, engineering and architecture. Among their numerous dedicated projects, scholarships and special events, the yearly gala dinner ending in a special auction organised by Sotheby’s is definitely the most glamorous. This year, CERN was asked by EPFL to contribute to the cause of women in science by donating a symbolic or historical object. The choice of a light guide was a winning one. Polished and "lit" by CERN’s central workshops, CERN’s light guide (probably coming from the UA1 or UA2 experiments) got the lion’s share at the auction, defying the competition of eight different pieces of collector’s artwork and photographs, and even a robot doll by EPFL, selling at a surprising 8000 CHF after a very tight and exciting suite of bids. As professors Karen Scrivener and Ines Lamuniere, respectively President and Vice-President of the foundation, wrote in a thank you letter to CERN, "CERN’s generosity and the quality of the gift evoked the wonderful relations between art and science".

http://epfl-wishfoundation.epfl.ch

Light guides (technically wave shifters) were used in particle detectors at CERN and other physics labs between the early 1950s and late 1990s. Their function was to re-radiate the energy of the incoming particles from the scintillators at a lower frequency to match the response of photomultipliers and optimize measurement.