{"id":12413,"date":"2015-12-09T09:31:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T14:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=12413"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:09:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:09:09","slug":"breaking-the-silos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=12413","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the Silos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"endeavors_cosms<\/a>
The CoSMS Institute will bring together scientists interested in the topics of cosmology and astrophysics, subatomic matter, and fundamental symmetries. (Photo courtesy of the CoSMS Institute)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

W<\/span>hat is the origin of the elements? Are neutrinos their own antiparticles? What is dark energy and how does it help the universe\u00a0expand?<\/p>\n

These types of inquiries, called \u201cgrand challenge physics questions,\u201d are just a few of many that scientists hope to answer. But, as physics professor John Wilkerson<\/a> points out, these discoveries will only lead to more questions down the road. That\u2019s why he proposed the idea for UNC<\/span>-Chapel Hill\u2019s Institute for Cosmology, Subatomic Matter &<\/span> Symmetries<\/a> (CoSMS Institute), in partnership with North Carolina State University, Duke University, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a tendency in science to get into silos,\u201d Wilkerson, the institute\u2019s director, says. \u201cYou get involved in your own research area and become very focused on that research. You don\u2019t really talk to people in other fields, and you become highly specialized in your own. But there\u2019s a lot of overlap in these interesting, fundamental physics questions. We want to get different groups of people talking \u2014 from theorists to experimentalists to computational\u00a0scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilkerson, with the help of Department of Physics &<\/span> Astronomy Chair Chris Clemens<\/a>, plans to do this through workshops, hosting distinguished visitors, and providing fellowships to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The CoSMS Institute officially launched this past May with a retreat featuring more than 40 faculty from the above mentioned collaborators, as well as North Carolina Central University.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the retreat, we asked people to get back into their silos to discuss the big questions in their fields,\u201d Wilkerson says. The groups broke into respective specialties: gravity and cosmology, astrophysics, astronomy, nuclear physics, and particle physics. Each one placed its big questions onto white boards, which, when put together, showed one obvious thing:\u00a0overlap.<\/p>\n

Since the retreat, Wilkerson and Clemens have solicited proposals for future workshops from the institute\u2019s partners and received an array of ideas. \u201cWe have a chance to be the center for fundamental nuclear physics research in RTP<\/span> with these three major universities,\u201d Clemens says. \u201cWe would draw the best minds in physics to come visit for these workshops. And we want them to think of this place as a hub for fundamental\u00a0physics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two men, one\u00a0vision<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1955, a wealthy North Carolinian industrialist named Agnew H. Bahnson, Jr. harnessed his passion for gravitational physics by creating the Bahnson Institute of Field Physics (IOFP<\/span>) at UNC<\/span>-Chapel Hill. He recruited two world-famous gravity theorists, husband-and-wife team Bryce and C\u00e9cile DeWitt, to run the institute. And a few years later, in 1957, played host to the first-ever Conference on the Role of Gravitation in Physics, better known as the Chapel Hill\u00a0Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were the center of activity in general relativity,\u201d Clemens says. But upon Bahnson\u2019s death in 1964, his estate established a professorship. Bryce was promoted to professor; Cecile was made a lecturer.\u00a0In 1971, the two left Chapel Hill and ended up leading the Center for Relativity at the University of Texas at\u00a0Austin.<\/p>\n

The institute lost its most prestigious members \u2014 and Chapel Hill was no longer the center of\u00a0gravity.<\/p>\n

Until now. \u201cIt makes so much sense to reboot the Institute for Field Physics, but broaden it out into an effort that includes all of the fundamental research going on \u2014 not just gravity but nuclear physics,\u201d Clemens says. This effort, Clemens feels, is a continuation of Bahnson\u2019s IOFP<\/span> and something the department should have been doing all along. For Wilkerson, it\u2019s the new inter-institutional way to pursue neutrino physics and these other\u00a0topics.<\/p>\n

Where science and passion\u00a0prevail<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wilkerson has spent the past 30 years researching neutrinos \u2014 subatomic particles thousands of times lighter than electrons. These particles are so tiny that they seamlessly penetrate most matter, including humans, and so numerous that their combined weight would be heavier than all the stars in the universe. And Wilkerson was recently part of a research team that discovered these particles have mass \u2014 the lead scientist of which, Arthur McDonald<\/a>, just won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics.<\/p>\n

The CoSMS Institute will ensure that Wilkerson and researchers of his caliber stay here in Chapel Hill and continue to lead the nation in nuclear physics. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing nuclear physics to make better nuclear reactors,\u201d Clemens says. \u201cWe\u2019re doing nuclear physics to know what neutrinos are. The CoSMS Institute will lay the groundwork, not just for the next 10 years at UNC<\/span>, but for the next 50 years, the next 100\u00a0years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although plans for the institute remain in the early stages, one thing\u2019s for certain: passion and a purpose drive it. \u201cOne of the questions that\u2019s often asked when doing fundamental science is: What is the benefit of this?\u201d Wilkerson says. \u201cThe nature of humankind is to wonder how the world works and how nature works. The most direct benefit is that we are training the next generation of citizens and scientists to compete in a technologically global\u00a0economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clemens envisions the institute\u2019s future as an interactive space \u2014 a physical building with large open rooms and chalkboard-filled walls. A place \u201cwhere you walk by people working and can\u2019t help but jump in,\u201d Clemens says. \u201cWe have to come at the CoSMS Institute with passion for the enterprise and then go light that fire in other people who are part of it, so their collective desire to do this spontaneously erupts into\u00a0activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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John Wilkerson is the John R. and Louise S. Parker Distinguished Profess of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of\u00a0Energy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chris Clemens is a professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at in the College of Arts and Sciences.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Alyssa LaFaro, <\/em>Endeavors magazine<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theorists, experimentalists, and computational scientists will come together to answer grand challenge physics questions at UNC-Chapel Hill\u2019s new CoSMS 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