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Barbara Erazmus
Investigative Physicist
Mathematics, Physics, Planet and Universe
(MPPU)
That she should have such a European last
name seems utterly appropriate.1
Barbara Erazmus is of Polish origin and
works as a specialist in nuclear physics
at CNRS. Having lived in France for twenty-two
years now, she is also perfectly comfortable
speaking English and Russian. But all of
that just constitutes auxiliary details
to the main dimension of her life's work.
“I am a member of a scientific community,
the National Institute for Nuclear Physics
and Particle Physics (IN2P3), which is multinational
in its organizational culture. Our experiments,
on the subatomic scale of atomic cores and
their constituents of elementary particles,2
require facilities on a global scale. We
have all learned how to work on a project
basis. I had an opportunity doing this in
1996 when I coordinated the design of new-generation
silicon detectors to outfit the Star experiment
3 for Rhic 4 at
Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United
States. But adapting the work of scientists
from several countries to accommodate the
demands of industry was not so easy. We
push our industry contacts to make technological
leaps, but sometimes they abandon us halfway
through the process! Participating in the
experimental program of Rhic,” Erazmus
proudly continues, “allowed us to
then reconstitute a plasma of quarks and
gluons, a state of matter unknown on Earth
but which existed at the creation of the
Universe, just after the Big Bang. We were
expecting matter with weakly linked particles,
but this plasma behaves like a very dense
fluid.”
Since September 2005, Barbara Erazmus has
been dividing her time between the Institute's
Parisian headquarters, where she is program
director for Hadron physics,5
and her research lab in Nantes, the Laboratory
of Subatomic Physics and Associated Technologies
(Subatech).6 Appointed
in 1988, following the completion of her
thesis and successful application to CNRS
for a permanent position, she has never
left. She became research director in 1998
and worked for three years as deputy director.
A path of logical steps that fits with her
vocation: investigation.
“Growing up, I hesitated between journalism
and physics. In Glucholazy where I lived,
I was ultimately influenced by the efforts
of a physics teacher who bent the rules
of the high school program to make it come
to life. He covered everything that was
still mysterious. There were no physicists
around me, but I found ways to reach my
objectives: by increasing the number of
encounters, you help destiny!” During
a stay in France, while studying general
relativity in Lódz, she followed
a sign in Annecy that read “Particle
Physics Laboratory.” Many good encounters
followed but above all was her discovery
of... Cern! She returned to Poland with
a goal. Even though her French textbook
was entitled “One day I will go to
Paris,” she finally moved to Caen
at age twenty-four. She switched track to
nuclear physics, believing there would be
more jobs in that field with the construction
of the National Heavy Ion Accelerator (Ganil).
And while France is now her scientific home,
she can't help noticing some differences
between the two places she's lived. “I
was surprised by the lack of emphasis on
sciences at school in France. In Poland,
we study physics in all grades, and we also
start doing chemistry and natural science
experiments at a very early age. Here, I
must explain to my children the laws of
electromagnetism, how electric current works,
etc. Their curiosity is not stimulated.
In the end, the basic principles for understanding
natural phenomena are lacking. Without that,
how can we ask the right questions?”
she wonders.
1. The humanist Erasmus
(1466-1536) of Rotterdam believed in the
idea of a united Europe.
2. An atom is composed
of an atomic core and electrons which gravitate
around it. The core is made of protons and
neutrons, which are in turn composed of
three quarks each.
3. Solenoidal Tracker at
Rhic, heavy ion collider.
4. Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider: www.bnl.gov/rhic/
5. Quarks cannot subsist
in an isolated state but only when linked
to each other by strong interactions. They
thus form hadrons.
6. Laboratoire de physique
subatomique et des technologies associées
(CNRS / Université de Nantes / Ecole
des mines de Nantes joint lab).
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