Given the good impression Robert Aymar made last year as chair of an external review committee for CERN, it’s no surprise he’s been named director general of the European particle physics lab. His five-year term officially begins in January 2004, but throughout this year, he says, he’ll split his time between CERN and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which he currently heads.
Aymar’s committee made a series of recommendations aimed at getting the Large Hadron Collider back on track after the proton—proton collider’s cost was reported to have ballooned by about 30%, to 3.5 billion Swiss francs ($2.6 billion). The recommendations focus on getting the LHC built by 2007—two years late—and paid for by 2010. Most other research activities at the lab are suspended. Before the budget squeeze in 1996, says Aymar, “CERN hadn’t suffered from decreases in manpower and support. It was a surprise to them that those...
