PENNY ESTABROOK lives in Ottawa, Canada. But she has spent most of the last five years in a rarefied enclave 30 miles west of Chicago where she conducts experiments on the world`s largest atom smasher.
To such high-energy physicists around the world, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is mecca.
”It`s a great place to work,” said Estabrook, 39. ”The exchange I have with scientists from other countries has been a big help to me.”
Of the estimated 2,500 experimental high-energy physicists scattered over the globe, half of them have worked at Fermilab at some time, said Bruce Chrisman, associate director for administration at Fermilab.
The defection earlier this month of Soviet physicist Artem Kulikov, who was working at Fermilab in an exchange program, focused attention on Illinois` appeal to foreign scientists.
THOUGH MANY residents don`t know it, Fermilab and other major scientific, educational and research facilities in the state have made Illinois a major gathering spot for top international scientists.
There now are more than 400 scientists from at least 30 countries working, living and playing in the Chicago area.
They come from such communist countries as the Soviet Union, China and Yugoslavia as well as nations in Western Europe and Latin America.
Many bring their families and stay anywhere from several months to five or more years; some leave their families behind. But everyone who comes finds the visit here an eye-opener.
”It is a beautiful country, so many trees,” said Cheng Hang Shen, 47, who has been working at Fermilab for two years. ”It is not as crowded as China.”
It is easier to be a physicist in the U.S. than in China because the working environment is ”freer and has less restrictions,” he said. ”You can devote more time and effort to doing the important things.”
CHENG, WHO IS to return to China later this month and rejoin his wife, a physician, said he was puzzled about the Soviet defection.
More Top Picks Best Kneeling Chairs For Posture Under 100 Dollar
”I don`t agree with him,” Cheng said. ”I don`t think they should defect. Everyone should love their home country.”
The flow of scientists between countries is a tradition.
”Science has always been like that,” said Ronald Johns, manager of employment at Argonne National Laboratory, 35 miles southwest of Chicago near Lemont.
”The laws of nature do not know national boundaries,” he said. ”An integral part of doing research is sharing state-of-the-art work because all scientists are interested in pursuing new information and knowledge. They learn from us, and we learn from them.”
More than 100 foreign scientists are working at Argonne, a major multipurpose laboratory that provides the opportunity for scientists to conduct research in many areas.
”THEY COME here because there are only about a dozen research institutions in the world with the kind of big science capability of Argonne,” Johns said.
Milan Nikolic, 55, a Yugoslav physicist who brought his 14-year-old daughter with him to Fermilab for a two-year visit, said the opportunity to work in this country has opened doors for him. His daughter is a sophomore at West Chicago High School.
”In my country, science is practically impossible,” he said. This is particularly true of high-energy physics, he added, because Yugoslavia does not have the money to invest in such costly programs.
Nikolic and his daughter have traveled extensively in this country, visiting California, the Grand Canyon and Hawaii.
He does have one complaint that is shared by many Americans: ”I can`t find a good mechanic to fix my car.”
Some scientists come on a more practical mission. They are interested in the high-technology corridor springing up in the western suburbs.
ONE HUNDRED and ten computer scientists and engineers from The Netherlands, for example, are spending anywhere from two months to two years working at American Telephone & Telegraph Co. Bell Laboratories in Naperville. They are interested in learning about a revolutionary telephone-switching system called 5ESS that was developed at the Bell facility. Eventually they will supervise installation of the system overseas as part of a venture between AT&T and The Netherlands` Philips Telecommunications.
”Most brought their families with them,” said Donna Kelly, a Bell Labs spokeswoman. ”They live in the Naperville area, and their children attend local schools.”
The children, who speak English, attend classes set up by Bell that teach them Dutch so they can retain their fluency in their native language while in this country, she said.
MANY FOREIGN scientists also come to take part in exchange programs at Chicago-area universities.
But the most intense international collaboration is going on at Fermilab. Some of the foreign scientists may spend a significant part of their careers at the 6,800-acre laboratory, working on experiments that span half a a decade or more.
Masa Mishina, 50, a Japanese physicist, has been working at Fermilab for six years and plans to stay three more. He bought a home in Geneva where he and his wife, Mizuho, 42, and their son, Yuri, 14, and daughter, Mayu, 11, could live more comfortably.
Owning a home is a luxury that Mishina said he probably could not afford in Tokyo because ”everything is so expensive there.”
MISHINA FINDS his Fermilab work ”very exciting,” but his wife has gone through a number of problems typical of many wives of foreign scientists. Learning to speak English well is still a problem, said Mrs. Mishina, who added that she is growing increasingly homesick.
She also is worried that her children have become too Americanized. Though the children are forced to speak Japanese at home, they are much better at English, she said.
Mrs. Mishina said she asked her children recently what they would think if they moved back to Japan. ”They said, `Oh, well, just for a vacation would be fine,` ” she said. ”They are like Americans. I think they will feel like strangers when we return.”
Besides the 100 foreign scientists working at Fermilab, there are 400 visiting physicists from other U.S. institutions and 70 from the laboratory itself.
MANY OF THE visiting scientists live on the laboratory grounds in the
”village,” which was the town of Weston before the government took over the property. Others live in apartments or condominiums in North Aurora, West Chicago and Batavia.
”This is truly an international facility,” said Roy Rubenstein, an assistant Fermilab director who coordinates the foreign-visitor program.
”The physicists themselves put together the group of researchers who will work on an experiment,” he said. ”These groups may range from only a few physicists to a couple of hundred, and they pick people from all over the world who tend to be the best experts in the research area under study.”
Fermilab Director Leon Lederman, however, believes that high-energy physics research is not just for scientists from the developed nations. He has inaugurated a program to attract physicists from Latin American countries, with the idea that what they learn here could help stimulate technological development in their own countries.
More Top Picks Page 2
Clicerio Avilez, 39, a University of Mexico physicist, has been working at Fermilab for a year and plans to stay three more. He is here with his wife, Rebecca, who is writing a novel, and their 20-month-old daughter, Angela.
”The laboratory is a very friendly place and, at the same time, a tough place,” he said. ”It gives you a chance to expand yourself professionally.”