Scientific research and industrial development in Taiwan are expected to benefit from Taiwan's forthcoming participation in a collaborative project with CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, one of the world's largest scientific research laboratories and home to one of the world's largest particle accelerators.
The National Science Council (NSC) announced yesterday that Taiwan and CERN officials had signed an agreement for Taiwan's participation in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, a particle accelerator under construction near Geneva, Switzerland.
When completed in 2005 the accelerator, 27km in circumference, will be the most powerful in the world.
NSC officials said that the LHC would break new ground not only in physics research and technology but also for international collaboration, with scientists from every region of the world represented in the construction of the LHC accelerator and the design of the major experiments the facility will perform.
In addition to CERN's 20 member states, several countries have contributed tremendous amounts of money to the LHC project, including the US, Russia, Canada, Japan, China, Pakistan and India.
In June 1999, scientists from two teams involved in the project, called ATLAS and CMS, accepted Taiwan's participation.
Since then, however, Taiwan has encountered a great many difficulties, mainly as a result of interference from China.
China protested to CERN, insisting that the title for the research team from Taiwan should have been "Taiwan, China."
Taiwan refused to accept this.
"We finally agreed on six points with CERN officials in bilateral agreements signed between us, stressing that a proper title for Taiwan will be used during the period of collaboration," said NSC Vice Chairman Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆).
Wu yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with CERN's research director, Roger Cashmore, in Taipei.
In the agreements, both agree to use Taipei as the seat of the National Science Council in Taiwan and to use Taiwan where it is necessary to identify the country. In addition, CERN will terminate all further discussion on these issues with the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
CERN officials also agree to take no action, and to include no items in documents, which could be embarrassing to either Taiwan or China.
According to Lee Shih-chang (
Scientists from both teams will focus on using special detectors to look for fundamental particles in a bid to explain the origins of life.
"The participation will enhance the Taiwan research team's technical capability, and will bring great benefit to industry," Lee said.
Lee said that experiments conducted at the LHC could possibly lead to technological advances in opto-electronics products and telecommunications products that could then be put to commercial use.
NSC officials said that Taiwan's participation in the LHC project could be a bridge connecting domestic scientists and their counterparts in the international community.
NSC officials said that they were considering prolonging the participation of the Taiwan team in the project after the year 2006.
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