The Large Hadron Collider and the future of science (in Africa)

September 10, 2008 by Brian Gondo ·
Filed under: Technology

There is currently a buzz of excitement in the world of physics, why you may ask? Predictably scientists especially physicists are not the most excitable of people… unless of course an experiment shoots electric current through them and they spontaneously combust with shouts of “Eureka!” Unfortunately most science is nowhere close to that kind of nirvana. However, in what will probably science’s closest shot at nirvana a large and expensive experiment is about to reach fruition in the peaceful cantons of Switzerland. Like the country’s secretive bankers a collection of thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians have for the last 9 years toiled on bringing to life the Large Hadron Collider. It is I suppose a measure of how far physics has come if cutting edge experiments over half a millennia ago consisted of Galileo dropping weights from the tower of Pisa* today it consists of building a $6 billion, an underground 17 mile particle accelerator with over 10,000 minders.

The LHC is an international collaboration being run under the stewardship of CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research). The scale, size, cost and complexity this experiment means that not one country but several countries have to pool their resources to achieve the interests of expanding humanities knowledge of nature. The genius of the EU has been to come up with several institutions such as CERN to tackle strategic large scale businesses and technical challenges, another great example of this is EADS the parent company of Airbus.

The premise for a particle collider is very simple: smash two elementary particles (protons are one example of this) together and they tend to break up into their constituent parts of matter and energy. Basically there are 2 kinds of colliders linear and ring. Linear accelerators shoot particles along a straight tube and ring accelerator moves two sets of particles in opposite directions (i.e. one clockwise and the other clockwise) and at some point contrives to bring them into a head on collision. When a collision happens all sorts of debris is spewed forth and from this scientists are able to glean a wealth of information.

Now back to CERN. While over regulated Swiss dairy cows gently chew the cud that makes some of the world’s best cheese bellow in the belly of the earth the LHC in an act of scientific Armageddon will whiz protons to within a millionth of the speed of light and smash them. The sheer scale of this experiment also highlights the fundamental disconnect between science and the common man. Science is now such a specialized discipline that it seems far removed from our day to day activities. Yet this is a false analogy. The very tool I’m using to communicate this: the World Wide Web (www) was a product of CERN scientist Sir Tim Berners Lee. In fact due to the vast amounts of data that the LHC will produce when in action up to the equivalent of 100,000 CDs every second there are enormous implications and applications that will be developed here that apply to how data will be streamed, organized, processed and accessed over the Internet and WWW.

Some Interesting Points about the LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen, is nearing completion and is scheduled to start operating this year.
The LHC will accelerate bunches of protons to the highest energies ever generated by a machine, colliding them head-on 30 million times a second, with each collision spewing out thousands of particles at nearly the speed of light.
Physicists expect the LHC to bring about a new era of particle physics in which major conundrums about the composition of matter and energy in the universe will be resolved.

One of the most anticipated outcomes (and depending on who ask this is a big IF) of the LHC experiments is the experimental observation of the Higgs boson an elementary particle that pops up in the theories of physicists but is yet to be actually observed. It’s detection or lack thereof will by and large validate or otherwise the standard models of theoretical physicists.

When the LHC is fully loaded and at maximum energy, all the circulating particles in it will carry energy roughly equal to the kinetic energy of about 900 cars traveling at 100 kilometers per hour, or enough energy to heat the water for nearly 2,000 liters of coffee, and since I’m a consummate coffee drinker that’s a great place to work. To put this into perspective there actually isn’t a whole lot of matter being smashed up for each event. The protons will travel in nearly 3,000 bunches, with each bunch of up to 100 billion protons. So each bunch is about the size of a needle, just a few centimeters long and squeezed down to 16 microns in diameter (about the same as the thinnest of human hairs) at the collision points.

Built at a cost of $6 billion (eh the kind of dollars our government would like to get it’s hands on..not the ones it prints), the LHC is not only the largest science experiment but certainly the costliest.

When I listened to a talk by Ron Eglash on TED.com about the fractal nature of traditional African settlements what amazed me was the intuitive manner in which Africans have always understood science. Eglash’s work also made me realize that most African cultures have had very complex mathematical concepts embedded in them. The reason why I think this is important is that it awakened in me a realization that complex scientific concepts are right at the heart of our thinking as Africans and this is not something that was ushered in by the ‘modernity’.

I think these realizations are important for all scholars of African origin. It helps our minds to accept the notion that we can be discovers of great scientific notions and inventors of on par with those of American, European and Asian origin. Indeed some of the earliest universities where those found in what is today known as Mali.

Following the amazing work being conducted at the LHC reminded me of some of my experiences with science and academia. One notable experience was my encounter (on the dark side) with Zimbabwe’s SIRDC (Scientific Industrial Research and Development Centre). Whilst working on the technical aspects of a business venture I visited SIRDC. I must say they have a lovely campus, about 10km outside Harare and does look like the typical science research centre: “special people (funny looking dudes with a weird fashion sense), in a special place (a picturesque campus), doing special things”. OK I’m being a little nasty but I must say it was with gusto that I visited SIRDC fired with anticipation that someone there would become equally fired up after I explained how my amazing business venture was not only going to transform the world but the communities of those involved. I thought with their technical expertise and my business acumen (well ok at least with their technical expertise) we would boldly go where no man has gone before.

At SIRDC I spoke to two gentlemen both with PhD’s about my venture and to cut a long story short they simply poured cold water on my idea. They agreed it was technically possible but heck, chances are I’d be building a white elephant. The least I expected was they would be willing to assist in whatever way they could and we would at least let the market decide whether the idea was a failure or not. It was a painful lesson and I quickly realised that while you can read about how Larry Page and Sergey Brin can get assistance to setup a search engine with no business model and for 2 years with no revenue that was impossible in this part of the world. After my chat with the boffins at SIRDC I realized it takes more than entrepreneurial fire to live the entrepreneurial dream. You need an ecosystem that is supportive of your endeavours.

However, this disconnect between research scientists and entrepreneurs and industry is not unique to Zimbabwe. Steve Jobs found the graphical user interface languishing at Xerox’s the Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC). Peer to peer file sharing existed in academia long before Napster (and I’m sure the recording industry would have preferred it to remain there!). This should not surprise us because scientists pursue knowledge and entrepreneurs pursue profit, two goals that do not often converge. However, when they do it is often with transformational results. The key in my view is to provide more opportunities and platforms to facilitate this convergence.

In our environment more than any other scientists and entrepreneurs are prisoners of their domains. Scientists tend to work in their knowledge silos and entrepreneurs in their business silo’s and never the twain do meet. Recently as I was surfing I came across a picture series of life in Lagos. Looking at the pictures my initial impression was of the squalor and deeply entrenched poverty. On taking a second look I began to see the opportunity: the opportunity for property developers, waste management companies etc. Africa’s problems call for smart partnerships between science and business. Partnerships between capital and knowledge. Where others see impossibility let us see opportunity. In a recent article by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School finance professor Richard Herring compared Africa’s current state of development to that of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asia Nations) in the 1980s, “right before they became Asian tigers.” Stephen Priestly, managing director at JPMorgan and head of investment banking for Sub-Saharan Africa adds that finding entrepreneurs in Africa with the requisite management skills is the “biggest constraint to business development on the continent,” and that often these skills need to be imported.

In my experience scientists don’t like business people and vice versa. There seems to be a natural aversion and distrust between the two, like how Dynamos and Highlanders fans don’t like each other. So why the heck am I talking about the LHC, well here are a few quick lessons, that we can take from the LHC program:

It’s the Network Stupid

Years ago when the Internet was still the baby of geeks in University Labs, the then CEO of Sun Microsystems Scott McNealy in his crusade against Microsoft and the desktop would take every opportunity to remind anyone within earshot that “The network is the computer”. CERN and LHC are the epitome of the value of networking and networks. CERN as mentioned before is the baby of the EU, a pooling together of resources by several countries. LHC also has American scientists and institutions involved. Also given the huge volumes of data that will come out from the collisions (or events as physicists prefer to call them) the analysis of the petabytes of data produced will take place on a so-called grid network comprising tens of thousands of PCs at institutes around the world, all connected to a hub of a dozen major centers on three continents that are in turn linked to CERN by dedicated optical cables.

The world of computing today is in transition from the PC/ Desktop centric model to the Network/ Cloud centric model. To fully appreciate the implication of this I’ll paraphrase Scott McNealy, if you want electricity you don’t build your own power station you get hooked up to a utility or grid. It’s not efficient for everyone to build their own power station (i.e. PC) but to tap power from the grid and pay for what they use and use what they need.

It’s the same with economic, social and health challenges facing African nations. The tendency is for each country to go it alone when it’s more efficient to pool resources, develop public/ private sector partnerships and build a regional or continental grid that users or rather citizens can tap into.

Knowledge, Knowledge, Knowledge

In an address at Harvard University in 1943 Winston Churchill had these words: “the empires of the future will be empires of the mind.” In 1959 Peter Drucker came up with the term ‘Knowledge worker’. Clearly both saw the rising prominence of knowledge and how those who had mastered it would rise to the top of the labour pile.

The current boom in commodity prices largely pushed by huge demand from China, India and Asia has once again highlighted the phenomena known as the ‘Resource Curse’, the inability of a country to capture the value of its abundant resources. Africa is filled with countries blighted by the resource curse: Nigeria, DRC, Liberia, Chad, Sudan etc Countries bursting with valuable natural resources yet dirt poor. The time has come to invest in knowledge. From education and research to forming strategic partnerships between business and academia. Africa produces a lot of scientists but these tend to find employment in countries were the pay is good. But the need and the scientific challenge is greatest in Africa. Through a private sector and public policy initiative these scientists can exert their efforts in solving Africa’s tremendous bank of problems for which they should be rewarded.

We are in the midst of a global war for mental talent and we are losing big time. These are some of the action points where I think private/ public policy change will result in a significant material impact on economic conditions:

· Strategic partnerships between African universities and world class Universities. Developing and funding Research Fellowship programs.

· Developing an elite corps of high quality Institutes of Technology that have a strong partnership with Industry.

· Implementing a Visa regime that allows skilled workers to come and work with minimum logistical, legal and regulatory hassle. This is not new the USA, UK, Germany, Australia etc all have this sort of thing. The key is for African countries to find their unique selling points (and by the way even ‘war torn’ countries have them!).

· Government and Private sector funded Research and Development (R&D) programs. I think there are areas where it’s in the government’s interest to fund R&D. One particular area is military technology. The US Department of Defense has spawned a number of technologies that have had immense civilian benefit, one big example: the Internet. It’s also no accident that Israeli Technology Company’s are leaders in security software and systems.

· Programs to fund the development of Executive education. Developing Management expertise: finding entrepreneurs with the requisite management skills is the In bringing externally trained management talent to the different African countries, however care needs to be taken because business practices across the continent are varied and not the same as those in the west. It should also not be assumed at face value that local business schools do not offer relevant education.

The bread and butter of the Hadron collider is bits of matter, bits of data and bits of energy. In essence those are the building blocks of the knowledge economy. Transforming resources from crude to high value requires knowledge and technology. A while back in an event that demonstrated desperation and ignorance the Zimbabwe media reported about the discovery of a diesel spouting spring near the town of Chinhoyi! Imagine that a refined petroleum product straight from mother earth- no knowledge or technology applied. It says something about the lack of quality in the country’s leadership when a cabinet taskforce is set up to look into this matter. People may laugh at Zimbabwe’s economy but in the last decade the number of universities has grown from 2/3 (depending on your classification) to 10.

Relish Failure

Large complex operations are large and complex because things never play out smoothly. Complexity brings unexpected challenges and consequences. Issues that result in additional costs, time delays, frustrations, malfunctions and accidents. Of these the LHC has had its share. One potentially serious problem came to light when engineers discovered that sliding copper fingers inside the beam pipes known as plug-in modules had crumpled after a sector of the accelerator had been cooled to the cryogenic temperatures required for operation and then warmed back to room temperature.

At first the extent of the problem was unknown. The full sector where the cooling test had been conducted has 366 plug-in modules, and opening up every one for inspection and possibly repair would have been terrible. Instead the team addressing the issue devised a scheme to insert a ball slightly smaller than a Ping-Pong ball into the beam pipe—just small enough to fit and be blown along the pipe with compressed air and large enough to be stopped at a deformed module. The sphere contained a radio transmitting at 40 megahertz—the same frequency at which bunches of protons will travel along the pipe when the accelerator is running at full capacity—enabling the tracking of its progress by beam sensors that are installed every 50 meters. To everyone’s relief, this procedure revealed that only six of the sector’s modules had malfunctioned, a manageable number to open up and repair.

One trick about being successful is knowing what sort of problems you enjoy solving. Every job is in essence a response to a problem. The LHC must then be a scientist’s dream job…big project, big problems. A famous Google recruitment advert once placed a mathematical problem on a billboard. If you solved the problem you could post it on a webpage which in turn would lead you to a Google recruitment page. Google needs people who can solve problems of a mathematical nature so the ad was a great way to attract exactly the kind of people the company needs. This is the challenge for African countries. African countries need to find a billboard to for their unique problems and at the same time offer an incentive for those problem solvers to come and work in Africa.

The Way Forward

At Parscec Capital (a company of which I’m a founder) we are involved with investing in technology and technology related businesses. We see tremendous opportunity for science graduate students and PhD’s to lead the charge in developing strategic technologies and successful companies that exploit those opportunities. We are actively exploring the important lessons of computer technology from Silicon Valley, biofuels from Brazil and the manufacturing prowess that is being shown by a raft of companies with global aspirations coming out of emerging economies.

At the advent of manned space exploration US President John Kennedy speaking at Rice University, Houston, Texas quoted the following words of William Bradford “all great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.” Kennedy knew that wresting leadership in the exploration of space was of vital strategic importance to the United States. His dream of having a man on the moon galvanised the nation and built a sprawling space industry that plays a critical role in the US economy.

The challenge for all people of vision and purpose in Zimbabwe and the African continent is not to be consumed by the black hole of despair but to be inspired by the opportunity for endeavour and the reward of solving some of mankind’s most intractable problems. I think it’s time for us to make our own moon shot.

* Galileo dropping weights from the tower of Pisa is probably more folklore than fact.

Tell the world: