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Jan 7, 2002 |
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Hirotaka Sugawara |
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Director General of KEK |
Happy New Year to everybody! I am very glad to be able to present
my penultimate new year's message to you. We have a lot of expectations
for the year 2002.
First of all, we can expect new physics results
from our B-factory after the 100fb-1 of new data, preferably towards the
end of the summer. We hope to achieve this goal together with our rival
and collaborating laboratory SLAC.
Secondly, K2K experimental group is certainly
facing a crucial year. How fast it can understand the cause of the last
year's disaster and how fast it can restart the experiment reflects on
the ability of the group and will determine its future.
Thirdly, JHF will enter the second fiscal
year of its construction. Our collaboration with JAERI must become more
mature. We should also be prepared to help JAERI as a good friend with
its reform process. We all know that the success of the JHF project will
be judged by how many excellent scientific results it will produce and,
perhaps, how fast. It is, therefore, very important that we set clear priorities
at this stage and design the organizational and the technical systems to
support these priorities.
Fourthly, our AR radiation facility is now
ready to restart its operation. Together with the 2.5 GeV photon factory
we are certainly one of the world centers in this field. The last frontier
of material science, i.e. the study of living forms, has just begun. We
must strengthen our activities in this field and reform our organizational
and technical systems towards this goal.
In addition to these positive challenges
the year 2002 will also be a difficult year. There are at least three very
difficult decisions to make. KEK must choose a new leadership team. KEK,
together with other inter-university institutes of Japan, must choose what
sort of an independent agency it will become. KEK, together with the world
community of high energy physicists, may have to decide how to proceed
with the linear collider project.
First, let me make just one recommendation
about the new leadership of KEK. Choose a young person who can serve for
approximately 10 years, just like the Fermilab director or the SLAC director.
If she or he has breath and depth of vision, she or he will need that much
time to realize it and it is definitely wrong to choose a person without
vision. Personally, an old soldier like myself should start preparing to
disappear. An old soldier has been wounded, becomes tired, and feels he
can no longer perform his duty joyfully; then he makes up his mind to fade
away.
Next, let me touch on the issue of the governmental
reform of national institutes into an independent agency. It is a political
issue, and as is always the case with political issues, we have passionate
people and apathetics, agitators and followers, reformists and oppositions,
genuines and phonies, officials and officials'pets, opportunists and enthusiasts,
etc. etc. We must constantly ask ourselves what we are and what we want
to become.
Finally, let me mention my thoughts on the
linear collider project, briefly. I believe that the selection of the technology
is still premature, although some people, especially those in DESY, may
not agree with me. But, quite independently of that, we may be able to
agree on the organizational structure of the project. We all seem to agree
that the project must be the global effort. The organizational structure,
therefore, must also be global. We have many models to consider: the CERN
model, the ESRF model, the United Nations University model, etc. etc. It
will be wonderful if I were able to report to you on the agreed upon structure
in my last new year's message next year. Thank you.
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