Scientists from enemy nations create a beacon for peace in the Middle East
THEY’VE built a machine in the desert in the heart of the Middle East. Israelis will use it – and so will Iranians, Jordanians, Turks, Pakistanis and many others. Scientists from countries recently at war or without diplomatic relations will work side by side – Muslims, Jews, Christians and atheists sharing the pursuit of knowledge.
The project is called SESAME. an acronym for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East.
It’s a particle accelerator that functions a bit like an X-ray machine. About 50 of these “light sources” exist around the world. They can reveal the atomic structure of matter and are useful for everything from biology to chemistry to archaeology.
The new machine is in Jordan, about a 45-minute drive from the capital of Amman.
“It’s a beacon, one lighthouse, in this era where there is killing, beheadings, gassing. We are showing a different way,” said Eliezer Rabinovici, 70, a physics professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the founders of the endeavour.
The project has been raked by political and financial crosswinds. The internationalism at the core of SESAME had to overcome nationalism. Security remains a concern.
But SESAME shows the centripetal force of the global scientific enterprise. Scientists speak the common language of mathematics, and they search for truths that are almost invariably universal.
Scientists depend on elaborate machines, such as particle accelerators, supercomputers and space telescopes – shared tools on a colossal scale. The premier example of this is CERN, the research facility outside Geneva where physicists used a particle accelerator to search for theoretical Higgs boson (found!). CERN is run by 28 member or associate states.
But science is not immune to political turmoil.
SESAME was roiled in 2010 when two Iranian scientists with connections to the project were killed in separate incidents. This was part of a series of attacks on Iranian scientists perceived to have connections to Iran’s nuclear programme. The government in Tehran accused Israel and the United States of involvement in the attacks, which both countries denied. The SESAME council later issued a condemnation of the assassinations.
Tensions also flared at a meeting held in 2010 shortly after Israeli commandos attacked a Turkishowned ship carrying aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, recalled Khaled Toukan, chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission.
“We were on the verge of withering away,” he said. “It has not been easy. But we made it.” — Washington Post