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professional performance of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion
by her Bach Choir and Orchestra.  The performance, presented as a worship
service rather than a concert, was so moving it brought tears to the eyes of
the performers as well as the patrons. 
    Khalil, born to immigrant
parents who had escaped the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, had become an active
member of a local mosque near the University of Chicago campus.  For the past
three years, Elizabeth and David, strictly following Islamic jurisprudence, had
prepared halal food for Khalil’s mosque during the month of Ramadan.  Here, the
faithful, who fasted during the day, would be able to share a meal at the
mosque, after sundown. 
    As Oliver had learned these
things about Peter’s team over the last few years, it was not lost on him that they
had become a close-knit family, spiritually as well as intellectually.  Addressing
all three of them, he asked, “Can you give me some background on the work you
have been doing?  I’m sorry to say that in all the time I’ve spent here with
Peter, he seldom talked in detail about your work, and I seldom asked.” 
    They then took turns relating
the development of their work, each from his or her own perspective.  Oliver
learned that here at Fermilab, in the last two decades, three independent
scientific disciplines: particle physics, astrophysics, and mathematics, had
begun to work together on what some had called the ‘Theory of Everything’.
    He asked the team members, in
turn, about their research.  “Khalil, I know you do much of your research at
that atom smasher on the border between France and Switzerland, called CERN. 
Isn’t it the same kind of facility as here at Fermilab; why do you need to go
there?”
    “It is the same design of
atom smasher as here; as a matter of fact, we designed that system.  However, it’s
much more powerful than this one and is therefore capable of finding those
missing pieces of matter we’ve not been able to find here at Fermilab.”
    “Couldn’t you have upgraded
this system to a higher power?”
    “We considered it but
realized we needed more room.  So in 1983 the United States began to develop a
very powerful atom smasher, at a new site, that was to replace this one.  The
Superconducting Super Collider would have been the world’s most powerful
system, capable of finding most all of the pieces of matter that theory
suggested existed.  Unfortunately, the money ran out and the project was
canceled in 1993.”
    “It used superconductors?”
    “The magnets were designed
with superconducting windings in order to achieve the highest powers.  What we
learned in designing the SSC magnets we eventually applied to the upgrade of
the system at CERN.”
    “Oh yes, now I remember. 
When the new superconducting magnets at CERN were first tested, one of them
exploded seriously damaging a section of the accelerator tunnel.”
    “Yes, that set us back more
than a year.  The one problem with superconducting magnets is that if they are
driven past a critical maximum they can self-destruct in a violent explosion. 
We’ve since designed computer programs to monitor and control each of these
magnets.”
    “So no more explosions?”
    “No, not since that first one
that delayed our research.”
    “What kind of research do you
do at CERN?”
    “My work is on the Swiss side,
at a detector called ATLAS.  I analyze new exotic particles that are generated
by the merger of two high energy beams of particles.”
    “Can you still use the
accelerator here at Fermilab?”
    “I still conduct some studies
here, but most of my research is now done at the new CERN, ATLAS detector,
where we recently discovered that particle everyone’s calling the ‘God particle’. 
Peter told me about your characterization of Wilson Hall as a cathedral.  Well,
following suit with this somewhat irreverent image, I claim Building 40, at the
site of my work at CERN, as my ‘place of worship’ since it