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GSI's 25th Anniversary
A major anniversary - it was 25 years ago, on
December 17, 1969, that the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) was founded - is
usually a good time to pause for breath and reflect. However, the brochure in your hands
is neither a straight summary of past achievements, nor is it a commemorative publication.
Instead, it is much more a series of reports explaining the current state and future
perspectives of a very dynamic research area in terms that even a non-specialist can
understand.
Research with heavy ions, as is possible today in Darmstadt using extensive facilities
including powerful accelerators and detectors, covers a very broad spectrum, ranging from
fundamental work in nuclear and atomic physics to concrete applications in materials
research and the utilization of radiation for medical purposes. The scope and significance
of this spectrum has long since made GSI - originally a national research center for the
German universities - into what it is today: an international heavy ion research laboratory
with more than 1000 users. GSI's outstanding reputation around the globe is founded upon its
almost unparalleled research facilities.
Research at GSI focuses on the fundamental properties of atoms and atomic nuclei. Many of
the topics in this area have not only remained relevant over more than 25 years, but have
also just recently matured to the point where they promise to provide a real breakthrough
in our understanding of matter. It was as long ago as the early 1960s, that predictions
regarding an island of stable, superheavy nuclei based around the element 114 were made. In
late 1994/early 1995, the heaviest elements to date with atomic numbers of 110 and 111 were
discovered in Darmstadt, and the elements 112, 113, and 114 are now within reach. In the
early 1970s, initial speculations were made concerning highly-compressed exotic nuclear
matter. Now, for the first time, tools enabling physicists to better understand the critical
processes occurring during supernovae explosions - not to mention the birth of the universe
- have become available at GSI (and elsewhere). The methods involved rely on an analysis of
the complex, multi-particle patterns generated during the collision of two atomic nuclei—an
event symbolically depicted on the cover of our brochure.
Similar staying power is needed when it comes to implementing the results of fundamental
research in the form of technological applications. The history of the natural sciences is
full of cases where early fundamental insights were quite slow in yielding later, often
surprising applications. Here, application-oriented research would never have produced the
same results. A good example of this phenomenon is provided by research into the biological
effects of heavy ion radiation, which has been a major area of interest since the founding
of GSI. In combination with some very recent technological innovations, the results of years
of research in this area have formed the necessary basis for a project involving tumor
therapy with heavy ions. As the control part of this project, the radiation treatment of
patients is scheduled to begin at GSI in 1996.
And what about the future? The facilities at GSI, which have been significantly expanded
since 1990, are undergoing continuous improvement and will guarantee GSI's position as a
world- leader in the area of heavy ion research well into the next century. However,
questions regarding the long-term perspectives of the laboratory will have to be tackled
before long. Within the foreseeable future, even higher particle energies and particle beam
intensities - not to mention additional probes - may well be in demand as science ventures
into new uncharted territory which cannot be conquered by other means. While such territory
will clearly be of tremendous interest for fundamental research, it may also hold great
potential for future applications. The thought process is already underway, and it is now up
to both GSI researchers and user groups to come to a rational, European consensus on the
future of the facility as we move into the next millennium.
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