For years, the main particle accelerator conferences have alternated between North America, in odd years, and Europe, in even years. Beginning in 2011, to make room for Asia’s PAC to join the rotation, Europe will switch from a two-year to a three-year cycle, but the organizers and sponsors of the North American PAC are resisting such a switch.
In April, Michigan State University’s Stanley Schriber, who chairs the NA PAC steering committee, broke a tied vote in the committee, coming down against switching the conference to a three-year cycle.
Arguments for switching include keeping the total number of conferences in the field down and treating North America, Europe, and Asia as equal partners in the field’s increasingly global endeavors. Arguments against switching center on the nature of the NA PAC, which includes more engineers and technicians than the other PACs; on the rotation around North America, which gives graduate...
