Professor Guy Paic, from the Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, UNAM, Mexico City will present a Physics Department public lecture, with a talk entitled, "Behind the big scientific discoveries are technological marvels - CERN as an example". 

Since the beginning of the modern era in physics the tools for the discoveries have been the
indispensable companion of science. From Galileo' s telescope to the today' s accelerators
and enormous detectors or astronomical observatories etc. the philosophy is the same:
better tools more insight. To some extent the needs of experimental physicists and other
scientists are driving the technological advances. Many times though the scientific results
are overshadowing the technological feats that, regardless of gathered results, do influence
our everyday life. It suffices to mention the internet that provoked a social revolution
without comparison. I will try to evoke the complexity of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN,
Geneva Switzerland as an example. Collaborating with this institution has become a prime
source of training for young people around the world.

Professor Guy Paic has over 30 years of research experience at CERN, the European Laboratory
for Particle Physics. He was one of the founding fathers of the ALICE Experiment at CERN’s
Large Hadron Collider and is interested in extreme states of matter, like the Quark-Gluon
Plasma, and the technology behind this research. Since 2003, he is a professor in Mexico,
where he created a vibrant research environment to foster the collaboration with CERN.