Blackett Laboratory, place of dozen discoveries
The Blackett Laboratory, home of the Department of Physics of the Imperial College based in London, United-Kingdom, was designated as EPS Historic Site on 30 April 2014. The Imperial College physicist Professor Tom Kibble had the privilege to unveil the commemorative plaque in presence of a large audience and EPS President John Dudley. Prof. Antonino Zichichi, past EPS president and member of the Blackett Group was invited to give a talk at the ceremony.
Since its inauguration in 1961, the building has hosted numerous eminent physicists, including Mohammed Abdus Salam, Physics Nobel Prize laureate in 1979. Following the heritage of excellence of the Imperial College, John Pendry, Peter Knight, Daniel J. Bradley, Tom Kibble have contributed to physics by defining new concepts and developing innovative apparatus.
The Blackett Laboratory building has been the site of much ground-breaking research. Already in the 1960′s, Sir Clifford Butler and Steve Goldsack designed the first standard measuring device for particle tracks, the British National Hydrogen Bubble Chamber Measuring Machine. Mohammed Abdus Salam also worked in London on the unification of the weak and electromagnetic forces that were the basis of the Nobel Prize awarded in 1979.
It is also noteworthy that during the same period, Professor Tom Kibble’s work at the Blackett Laboratory described the mechanism explaining how gauge bosons gain mass via the Higgs field, which helped in the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle in 2012.
John Dudley, EPS President, said: “The advances made at the Blackett Laboratory have impacted on all fields of physics, and the laboratory continues today to produce results at the highest level and to turn out exceptional young physicists.”
A list of achievements done in the Blackett Laboratory, can be found on the EPS website.
