John Armitage, Department of Physics

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On the right track

John has always been interested in building equipment, detectors: the creative spirit being paramount. He likes to start with a concept, an idea of how something should work, then construct it and make it a reality. Coupled with a deep interest in high energy physics – the physics of very small particles, much of his life has been spent building detectors that can respond to those infinitesimally small particles and track where they are going. This involves knowledge of the properties of those particles coupled with a wide range of practical skills needed to exploit new technologies that can help to improve their detection, and reduce the backgrounds.

Science advances as we are able to put nature to the test, and make sense of the outcomes using current theories. As we probe nature closer and closer, the detectors we use have to become more accurate, have lower dead-time and be more radiation resistant. Perhaps counter intuitively, they also become larger. The Atlas detector at CERN for example is 45m long and 25m high.

John’s interest now, is to take that technology, successfully developed for large high energy physics experiments, and to apply it to practical and commercial problems. Hopefully in solving them, we may make the world a better and safer place to live in.

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