TORONTO, March 12, 2004 -- York University’s internationally acclaimed physicist Eric Hessels has been awarded the NSERC Steacie Fellowship, one of Canada’s premier science and engineering prizes, for his breakthrough research into the production of antimatter.
Working with physicists in Europe, Hessels succeeded in capturing the first glimpse of the structure of antimatter by passing antihydrogen atoms through an electrical field before they hit the wall of the apparatus and disappeared.
“Antimatter is amazingly difficult to create,” said Hessels, a member of ATRAP, an international team that produced abundant antihydrogen atoms in 2002 at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics, near Geneva. “This accomplishment will help unlock further mysteries surrounding the birth of the universe that have so far eluded us.”
“Eric Hessels is a brilliant and accomplished physicist, and this recognition is extremely well deserved,” said Gillian Wu, dean of York’s Faculty of Pure and Applied Science. “This is fantastic news for York and for Canada. The stuff only dreamt about in science fiction is now a reality thanks to Eric and his colleagues.”
Experiments with antimatter could test some of the basic tenets of modern physics, shedding light on the symmetries of nature which predict that matter and antimatter will have similar properties. They could help explain why the world is made of matter rather than antimatter. Scientists have long puzzled over why the world is not also made of antimatter, which only occurs naturally in cosmic ray collisions. They believe the Big Bang should have created the same amount of matter as antimatter, and in theory, the two should have wiped each other out, as matter and antimatter explode on impact and disappear. The explosion generated by the collision of an antiparticle and a particle is the most powerful energy source known, but scientists are still far from being able to harness that energy.
Along with hunting antihydrogen, his other main project is a six-year-long study to measure, to nine digits of accuracy, the energy required for an electron to jump orbits in a helium atom. He already holds the world record for this feat, equivalent to measuring the distance to across Lake Ontario to less than the width of a hair. The measurement is important in that it enables physicist to more accurately calculate the fine-structure constant, a value that is a fundamental component of quantum physics calculations.
“These awards are public recognition for outstanding scientific achievement”, said Dr. Tom Brzustowski, President of NSERC. “The researchers honoured today have already started their careers in a way that has already earned them an international reputation and I know that they will continue to do great things for science and engineering in Canada.”
The 2004 NSERC Steacie Fellowship awards recognize six outstanding Canadian university scientists or engineers who have earned their doctorate within the last twelve years, and whose research has already earned them an international reputation. Nominations are received by NSERC from universities across Canada and judged by a distinguished panel of independent experts. The awards include increased research funding from NSERC and payments to the universities to allow the Steacie Fellows to pursue their research full-time. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Ottawa later this year.
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For more information or to arrange an interview, media should contact:
Nancy White
Director, Media Relations
York University
416-736-5603
whiten@yorku.ca
YU/041/04
