Letters

Ireland and particle physics research

Pioneering predictions of theoretical physicist John Stewart Bell

Mon Oct 17 2022 - 00:12

Sir, – We wish to heartily congratulate Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, the three recipients of this year’s richly deserved Nobel Prize in physics.

Ireland should also be justly proud of this recent award. Although none of the three recipients (Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger) is Irish, or based in Ireland, this is very much an Irish Nobel prize. According to the official press release, the prize was awarded “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. Their work would not have been possible without the pioneering predictions of the Irish theoretical physicist John Stewart Bell, who was born in Belfast in 1928 and sadly died at the young age of 62. His work was of such importance that had he lived he would undoubtedly have been awarded his own Nobel Prize, and this award, with its copious references to Bell and his work, is recognition of that fact.

John Bell spent most of his career at the particle physics facility at Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva, until his untimely death in 1990. Ireland is not a member of Cern, which we believe is a strategic mistake for Ireland, and we urge the Irish Government to at least take up associate membership.

John Bell’s work has profound implications for the future of quantum computing, quantum cryptography, quantum information and modern communications. While at Cern, he also made other important contributions to particle physics, which are currently being checked at Cern, and are increasingly playing a more prominent role in condensed matter physics, which underpins the semi-conductor industry. Unfortunately, had he been born in the Republic of Ireland, he would probably never have gone to Cern. – Yours, etc,

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DENJOE

O’CONNOR, MRIA

Senior Professor,

School of Theoretical

Physics,

Dublin Institute

for Advanced Studies;

BRIAN DOLAN,

Professor Emeritus,

Department of

Theoretical Physics,

Maynooth University

Adjunct Professor,

School of Theoretical

Physics,

Dublin Institute

for Advanced Studies,

Dublin 2.