DESY postdoc Armando Bermúdez Martínez with 2004 Physics Nobel Laureate David J. Gross (photo: private).
Armando Bermúdez Martínez, a postdoc at DESY in Hamburg, has just returned from the experience of a lifetime: he spent a week with Nobel laureates, learning about their research and discussing scientific ideas. Every year, 30–40 Nobel laureates convene in the historic town of Lindau on Lake Constance to meet a select group of undergraduates, PhD students, and post-doc researchers from all over the world. Bermúdez Martínez, who has just completed his PhD at DESY and University of Hamburg in particle physics with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, was nominated by DESY and the Helmholtz association.
This year’s Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was dedicated to physics and brought together 580 young scientists from different disciplines and 89 different cultures and traditions with 39 Nobel laureates to speak a common language – science. In a warm, relaxed and friendly environment the young scientists and the Nobel laureates, including the 2018 Laureates in physics Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou, exchanged ideas and discussed over dinners, breakfasts, science walks, lectures, talks, panel discussions. Discussions did not only cover physics but also how science can change the world for the better.
Bermúdez Martínez specially cherishes the memories of his exchanges with 2004 Physics Nobel laureate David J. Gross on the future of particle physics. He was also impressed with the other young participants, likely to be the next generation of leading scientists. “I met a bunch of very impressive people and I hope our paths will cross again in the future,” he says.
Bermúdez Martínez studied in Havana (Cuba) at the InSTEC Institute, and came to DESY as a summer student in 2014. DESY and the University of Havana have recently signed a cooperation agreement to intensify the common efforts in teaching and research in the area of particle physics.
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was conceived in 1951 as a European initiative of post-war reconciliation among scientists. This year’s physics-themed meeting will give rise to the Lindau Declaration 2020 on Sustainable Cooperative Open Science: http://www.lindaudeclaration.org/
Website of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
