To some of you, the name might ring a bell, while to others, it's just anther play on words. To those who have been following updates and advances on arguably the most exciting scientific discovery of the decade, the first name in the title belongs to a woman, Fabiola Gianotti, whom as you'll find out, is no ordinary person.
The spectacular scientific discovery in mind is the discovery of a Higgs Boson - like particle. The Higgs Boson a.k.a God particle is named after the British physicist, Peter Higgs, who first proposed the 'Higgs Theory'. In mid 2012, a particle that has very similar properties with the Higgs particle was discovered in a collider at CERN. By the way, CERN stands for Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire, or European Council for Nuclear Research.
 |
Fabiola Gianotti
(Source: Time Magazine) |
So where does Fabiola Gianotti come in? Well, she played an important role leading up to the discovery of the Higgs-like particle. She headed the ATLAS experiment - consisting of 3000 scientists from 37 countries - at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN where the discovery was made. The ATLAS experiment was one of two experiments that were searching for signs of the Higgs Boson. In light of this, she was voted the runner-up person of the year 2012 in Time magazine.
Born to a geologist, Fabiola Gianotti is an Italian particle physicist by profession and was a physics coordinator at ATLAS from 1999 to 2003. After working at CERN for 18 years, she was elected to become spokesperson and coordinator of the ATLAS experiment. Surprisingly, Fabiola Gianotti's early education had little to do with physics. Her secondary education focused primarily on ancient languages, art history and literature.
Only during university did she opt to study physics. Having studied philosophy as a teenager, she says the two fields are very much alike as they both pondered on the very basic questions. Growing up, she had always been a very curious person and loved nature at the same time. So it seemed right that she pursued a filed which requires the hunger to know and understand all things around us.
Besides being a leading physicist, she also holds a professional music diploma in piano from the Milan Conservatory. Being well-immersed in both the arts and science, Gianotti thinks that art and physics are not so very different because, as she is quoted saying, 'art is based on very clear, mathematical principles like proportion and harmony. At the same time, physicists need to be inventive, to have ideas, to have some fantasy.'
That is something I agree on. I think art and science are very much related, except that the former is more abstract while the latter is more concrete and quantifiable. This has lead most of to think that art or the arts is all about emotions, aesthetics, culture and creativity while science is often viewed as mathematical, absolute, and 'dead' even. Both fields are immensely broad, and intercept every now and then. Take architecture for example, it is considered a visual art yet employs mathematics and physics to design.
It is also interesting to note that female scientists only make up about 30% of the research scientist in Europe and a quarter in the US. That means it is more statistically unlikely for a woman to excel in a science career. Eventhough reports have shown that underachievement by girls in mathematics has narrowed drastically and is non-existent in some countries, girls typically lose interest in science very early on in secondary school and few want to pursue a science career. Some girls still believe they are not as good as boys in mathematics. However, Gianotti has proven that with passion and the right attitude, you can achieve just about anything.
