The cornerstone of the regional synchrotron accelerator SESAME project will be laid next month in Jordan. What makes the progress of the accelerator that will produce X-rays for research purposes a scientific miracle is not a technological breakthrough but the fact that about ten countries from Asia and Africa are members of it, including Israel, Iran, Pakistan and also the Palestinian Authority
The BESSY-1 synchrotron accelerator in Berlin
One of the most impossible projects in the world of science, which in some way, transcending understanding, continues to develop is a project. SESAME The project includes the construction of a synchrotron type accelerator, where scientists from the Middle Eastern countries are supposed to work side by side.
The promotion of the project began about five years ago, and recently the chairman of the temporary council of the project, Prof. Herwig Schofer, came to Israel for discussions on the terms of Israel's participation and a report on the progress of the project. He announced that on January 6, a cornerstone laying ceremony will be held in Alan in Jordan, half an hour northwest of Amman, where the accelerator will be installed.
The idea that Israelis, Palestinians and Iranians will meet in about a month for a festive and friendly Hanukkah ceremony, was seen on Thursday of last week, when Shofer met with local scientists, especially surreal, because on that morning the attack in Mombasa took place and in the evening the attack on the Likud branch in Beit Shan.
"I'm not naive, of course," Shofer explained in an interview afterward. "I don't think SESAME will help you solve all the problems in the region. But SESAME is also not a laboratory experiment that will last two years, but a project that will last about twenty years. I am convinced that science can really make a huge contribution to understanding between nations. If it's two people working together, it remains science, but if it's many people? The governments are also learning to work together."
Synchrotron accelerators are currently at the forefront of scientific research in the world, and the pace of establishing new synchrotrons is increasing. The machine produces beams of very high intensity X-rays. The emitted radiation is used for diverse research in many fields, including structural biology and protein research, drug development, archeology and materials research. In a particle accelerator, particle accelerators study the particles created as a result of acceleration or collisions between the accelerated particles; On the other hand, in the synchrotron the accelerated particles are not interesting at all, and they are only used as a means of emitting X-rays, which is the purpose of the facility. The particles are accelerated along a channel in a circular path, and by means of the X-rays emitted from them the various studies are carried out.
SESAME are English acronyms for "Synchrotron Energy for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East". The temporary council of the project includes Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Pakistan, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman. The status of "observers" includes, among others, the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, Italy and Sweden.
The accelerator was transferred from Germany
Moshe Deutsch, a professor of physics at Bar Ilan University and a member of the temporary council of SESAME says that today it is difficult to reconstruct who exactly first came up with the idea of establishing such a scientific project in the Middle East to promote peace. But it is usually attributed to Prof. Sergio Pobini, from the European Physics Laboratory in Geneva, who raised the idea more than five years ago at a meeting of "Scientific Cooperation in the Middle East", a forum of scientists to promote dialogue between the peoples of the region.
Later, Gustav Foss, one of the heads of the BESSY-1 synchrotron accelerator in Berlin, and Hermann Winnick, an expert on synchrotron accelerators from Stanford University, came to another meeting of the forum. They said that work on BESSY-1 is nearing completion, and that the accelerator will be dismantled to make room for the construction of a new synchrotron. The accelerator was already about twenty years old, but still worked well. "Why don't we upgrade it and move it to the Middle East?" they asked
The idea was accepted, and continued to develop under the auspices of UNESCO, the United Nations Organization for International Cooperation in the Fields of Education, Science and Culture. The parts of the accelerator were transferred about a year ago to Jordan, and according to Prof. Shofar "today is a critical time for the project". The countries that want to participate as members of the accelerator must commit to it, and allocate the necessary budget. Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey, Shofer says, have already committed.
Prof. Hagit Messer Yaron, the chief scientist of the Ministry of Science and coordinator of the activities on the subject, said that Israel promised to "deliver an official answer by the end of December." Sources involved in the negotiations say that in the meeting with Shofer on Thursday, "the spirit of things was positive" and now "lawyers are going over the summaries of things."
About 8 million dollars are still missing for the establishment of SESAME (which will probably be raised from the European Union). After its upgrade, its power will reach 2 GeV (giga electron volts, the unit of energy in which the power of accelerators is measured). For comparison, the power of the ESRF synchrotron in Grenoble, France, reaches 6 GeV and the power of the Spring accelerator in Japan 8 GeV, according to Prof. Ada Yonat, who works at the Weizmann Institute in structural biology research, today Israelis work at synchrotrons all over the world, and Israel is a partner in -, ESRF that meets the scientific needs.
However, Yonat says, "from a purely scientific point of view, we can benefit from SESAME. In terms of power, it is lower than the accelerator in Grenoble, but facilities like it can still satisfy many research needs. Synchrotrons are measured not only by power, but also by many other things, such as the ability to change the wavelength, providing fast pulses and more. In the field of structural biology, SESAME can be rated as mediocre in terms of its performance capability, but there are mediocre synchrotrons that do wonderful things with them." According to Shofer, in SESAME it will be possible to carry out about 80% of the research in the field of the synchrotron.
"We don't go to SESAME because of need, we go because of benefit," Yonat says. According to her and according to Prof. Yoel Sussman, who is also a structural biology researcher at the Weizmann Institute, SESAME can upgrade the research conditions of Israeli scientists: there is a great advantage in that there is an accelerator not far away; This saves all the packing of the samples before the flight, Yonat says. "For an experiment in a distant accelerator, the professor will usually fly with individual students. Here, because it will be possible to arrive by car, it will be possible to take more students, and this means more people who will have an education, who will acquire knowledge in all stages of the research, who will then be able to handle the results in an intelligent way, plan better experiments and be ready for contemporary science."
However, according to Yonat and the president of the Israeli Academy of Sciences, Prof. Yaakov Ziv, because Israel already pays about a million dollars every year for its participation in an accelerator in France, it will not be possible to invest a large amount of money in SESAME either. The amount Shofer requested, and on which there is general agreement in Israel, It is about 70-50 thousand dollars a year, in the first three years.
serious concerns
In the 80s, Shofer managed SARN, the European laboratory for particle physics, which today owns the largest particle accelerator in the world. His ambition is to realize in SESAME the vision that was realized in Saran. Saran was established after World War II, with the intention of restoring Europe and renewing the dialogue between the countries through a scientific project. When the laboratory was established, about fifty years ago, many of the people who worked there - and certainly their ancestors - had fought each other only a few years before. The laboratory, which looks like a multinational planet (it was the first place where scientists from the USA and Russia or from China and Taiwan met), stands today at the forefront of science.
But does the vision of "peace between all nations", which worked so well in the Saran European Physics Laboratory, also apply to the Middle East? "I doubt the ability to work together when the political climate is so difficult," said Prof. Leslie Lazarowitz, who deals with materials research at the Weizmann Institute, in a meeting with Shofer.
Some of his colleagues had much stronger reservations. Miron Amosia, a professor of atomic physics from the Rakah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University, opposed in principle Israel's participation in the project and "aid to the Arabs". According to him, "they will be able to use the work at the synchrotron to develop" technologies that will be used against Israel. Prof. Amnon Marinov, a physicist from the Hebrew University, who was sitting next to him, said that he is not "afraid of this machine itself, but that they will teach people to use accelerator technologies and then build a similar accelerator with higher energies and currents."
Prof. Shofer was somewhat surprised by the strength of the opposition. "There will be no secret work at SESAME, everything must be published. And if Israel, as we hope, chooses to participate as a member of the project, it will also participate in the committees and all decisions," he said.
According to Eliezer Rabinowitz, a professor of high energy physics from the Hebrew University and a member of the project's temporary council, the basis for the hostile position presented at the meeting is the attitude that says that "they must not be taught to read and write and they must not be taught to fly, because then they would not have damaged the Twin Towers either. My opinion is that there are so many channels of conflict between the various parties involved, that it is essential to have one channel of communication, and there is no better channel than scientific communication. You can also learn to fly in other places, and in Pakistan, for example, they didn't wait for SESAME to build an atomic bomb. In any case, the decisions in Israel are made by all the authorized bodies, including the Atomic Energy Committee."
According to Prof. Yonat, a constructive meeting, for a change, is more essential today than ever. "In my opinion, anything that raises the standard of living and knowledge, even slightly, of our neighbors is in our favor. Because a large part of their despair stems from the fact that they have no horizons of hope. With SESAME we help to increase the horizons of hope and possibilities".
In response to the question of whether he encountered similar suspicion in other countries as well, Shofer said: "Of course in every country there are doves and hawks. I must say that so far these arguments have not come up. Everyone agreed on working together and solving problems. About a year ago, I was in Iran for the first time, and then I saw how many mistaken attitudes we, the Westerners, have about them, and how the reality there is much more complex than we think."
The invitation to the cornerstone laying ceremony in Jordan arrived in Prof. Deutsch's mailbox yesterday. "What are the chances that I will actually get there? This question," said Deutsch, "should already be addressed to those in charge of security. The desire to participate exists."
Israelis and Iranians will build an electron accelerator in Jordan 
1.6.2002
By: Tamara Traubman
The electron accelerator in Germany. The accelerator in Jordan is called "sesame"
Despite the violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the growing tensions
In the region, scientists and politicians from countries in the Middle East, including Israel,
The Palestinian Authority and Iran met last week in Paris with the aim of establishing
An electron accelerator (synchrotron), where scientists from the region will work together.
Synchrotron accelerators are very popular today in the world. They are used
For studies in various fields: from the study of the structure of proteins in the human body
and drug development, to the study of pollutants in the environment, analysis of findings
archaeological, miniaturization of electronic circuits, and research of new materials.
The Middle Eastern accelerator is known as "sesame", English acronym for
Synchrotron-light for
Experimental Science and
"Applications in the Middle East
.” We still haven't found all the necessary funding for its establishment, but the partners
Optim in the project, and recently even arrived from Germany to Jordan, where it will be established
The accelerator, the packages with its parts.
The idea of establishing the accelerator first arose in 1997 at a meeting of physicists
from the Middle East, held in Turin, Italy. Germany was then facing me
Stopping the work of a synchrotron named BESSY-1 (for the purpose of establishing
a new synchrotron on top of it), and offered to donate it to the Middle East,
as a "joint scientific project for the promotion of peace".
"Even then the situation was not calm. (Benyamin) Netanyahu has already come to power,
That's why we met in Turin and not in the Middle East", says Prof. Eliezer
Rabinowitz, a physicist from the Hebrew University, who was present at that meeting
And currently a member of the temporary international council of "Sesame". According to him, although
The ups and downs that have occurred since then in relations between Israel and its neighbors,
"We managed to talk about physics in the meetings and promote the project." the delays
The different ones, says Rabinovitch, were mainly caused by economic reasons, and not
politics.
About the last council meeting, which took place in Paris, Rabinovitch says:
"It's like living in a parallel universe. While there is a conflict in Israel,
In the project we manage to cooperate. As a physicist I always dreamed of
Parallel universes, and this is where it comes true."
At the meeting in Paris it was decided that in December the cornerstone laying ceremony will take place in Jordan
- The inauguration ceremony of the previous accelerator, planned about a year ago, was canceled due to reasons
economics. The accelerator is expected to undergo an upgrade that will double its power.
The meetings are held under the auspices of UNESCO, the United Nations Organization for Education, Science
and culture, and besides Israel, members of the Sesame Council also include Iran, Jordan,
The Palestinian Authority, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Greece and Turkey. for how many
Other countries have "observer" status in the Council, including Armenia,
Cyprus, Kuwait, Sudan, United States, Germany, Great Britain, France,
Russia and Japan.
The desire of the president of the council, Prof. Herwig Shofer, is to restore the
The success of Saran, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, which previously stood
in her head Saran was established 48 years ago, out of the ruins of the World War
The second, with the aim of renewing the cooperation between the countries and restoring the
Europe. Germans, French, British, Italians and other Europeans, who are
Or their ancestors fought each other only a few years ago, began to cooperate
as part of a scientific project.
Today Saran is a leading international center in physics, and its scientists work hard
Now about the construction of the most powerful particle accelerator ever built
time.
At a meeting of the Sesame Council it was determined that the countries that want to join must
Officially as a company in Sesame to immediately transfer 50 thousand dollars, to commit
transfer annually an amount to be determined in the future in the project's regulations. between the countries
They have already transferred this amount to Iran.
The Israeli Academy admittedly transferred about 25 thousand dollars about two years ago, but
Now it seems that Israel is not interested in transferring additional sums of money, rather
to pay her share - or at least most of the amount - in other ways, such as
Work of scientists and technicians.
According to the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences, Prof. Yaakov Ziv,
"The Israelis are very interested in the project. To use science as an ambassador of peace
is of great importance"; But from a scientific point of view, Israel is already a partner in the accelerator
A more advanced European synchrotron, located in France. Participation fee
At the European synchrotron they are about a million dollars a year, and for Israel, says Ziv,
It is not possible, and in any case there is no need, to pay a similar amount for companies
in sesame
However, Israeli scientists, mainly biologists, say they mean it
to work in an accelerator, if established. According to them, the overhaul of the synchrotron will turn it around
A "proper" machine and also its relative proximity have an advantage, because it is possible
come to it often together with students.
by Tamara Traubman
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