Though the discovery of the Higgs boson or ‘God Particle’ (Ishwar Kana) caused a stir in the world, many people do not know how its study was linked with operators and machinists in Howrah in West Bengal and how it led to that discovery by CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire/European Council for Nuclear Research) in Geneva.

On the eve of Biswakarma Puja, Jisnu Basu, a faculty member of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) in Kolkata, recalled the contribution of those skilled, but so called ‘illiterate,’ machinists in Howrah, popularly known as the ‘Glasgow of India’, which has allegedly lost its glory now. Keeping in mind Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan, ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, Dr Basu has also branded those operators as the “Biswakarma” in real life.

“As we are talking about Atmanirbhar Bharat, we think the performance and role of those Bishwakarma is important. Not only that, Indians can do even impossible jobs if scientists from laboratories like SINP put their hands on those so-called illiterate Bishwakarma,” Dr Basu said.

Two CERN scientists, Kris Faber and Hans Ture, had visited the Balaram Engineering Works in Bankura in Howrah to inspect the machining of the ‘Front Absorber.’ As Mr Faber noticed a raw sewer in front of the workshop and crossed it, he seriously asked thrice: ‘Are you right? Is the work going on here?” “The Process Inspection Report is being sent to CERN on a regular basis,” Dr Basu replied to them.

However, Dr Basu, who accompanied the two CERN scientists, was apparently embarrassed as he entered the workshop where the new Vertical Turret Lathe was set up. “I felt kind of hesitant as I noticed that operator Bifal-da (Roy) was topless and in a relaxed mood, smoking a bidi and wearing only a lungee as the weather was hot there,” Dr Basu said, adding, “CERN scientists inspected finally and measured huge giant components by computer-aided coordinate measuring machines.

“The most interesting thing is that when CERN planted them 564 feet below the ground, it was found that not a single component was wrong in size. Bifal da’s work was hundred percent accurate. But many other countries, including a European country, supplied parts, which were not accurate.”

Notably, Professor Pratap Bhattacharya, one of the leaders of this scientific project, died of cancer. “One of the Bishwakarmas is no more. One Baban Ghosh has to undergo dialysis twice a week, while 71- year-old Kalipada Pramanik does not work because he met with an accident. Pratap Bhattacharya was the project leader there and the youngest member of the team was Dipankar Das,” Dr Basu said.

In 2002, SINP Director Professor Bikash Sinha convened a meeting by inviting senior scientists like Prashant Sen, Pratap Bhattacharya, Sukalyan Chatterjee, Jisnu Basu and others to discuss proposals that came in from CERN as it has built a 27-km-long tunnel and the circular tunnel that has touched Switzerland, France and Germany, in order to unravel the mystery of the creation of the universe.

Interestingly, Professor Bikash Sinha, who was confident in the country’s technology, has taken that responsibility, as Russia was unable to provide the composite portion of copper and graphite for the experiment. One of its eight detector experiments was ‘A Large Ion Collider Experiment’ (ALICE).

According to Dr Premomoy Ghosh, Former Head, High Energy Physics Section, Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre in Kolkata, one can create the exotic state of matter, the Quark-gluon plasma, in a laboratory, in ultra-high energy collisions of two heavy ions.

“But the Quark-gluon plasma so formed does not last long. In fact it stays for a small fraction of a second, in a weeny space. So gathering information from such a short lived tiny system formed in the collision is very challenging. The only way to gather information is to detect and study maximum possible particles coming out from the collision. Detecting all the particles is also very difficult when thousands of particles are being formed and many of them are so short-lived that they don’t reach the detector that is placed very close to the collision point. Those short-lived particles are detected by measuring momentum, energy of the daughter (decayed) particles,” he said.

According to him, ALICE is a set-up of sub-detectors at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN. “In ALICE, the Muon Spectrometer is the sub-detector to detect muons. Detection of muons become relatively easier is other charged particles can be stopped before reaching the Muon Spectrometer. A suitable absorber is placed before the Spectrometer to absorb most of the charged particles allowing Mouns to pass through to reach the Muon Spectrometer. Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics had readied and provided the absorber and a major part of the Muon Spectrometer to CERN….” DrGhosh added.

Meanwhile, the team under the guidance of SINP finally figured out a solution after several days of fighting. In fact, the big obstacle was the Russian drawing, which was designed by the Sarov Atomic Research Centre in Soviet Russia. Interestingly, one Roy Chowdhury, the head of the design section of the New Allenberry Works in Kolkata, had a very clear idea of the Russian drawing and his cooperation helped the team a lot and scientists there came to a conclusion that copper was selected because of its low magnetic permeability, but Austenitic Stainless Steel could be the alternative.

It was decided that instead of 10 copper plates, there will be only one huge ‘beheaded cone’ of steel with a hole in the middle. It is six feet in diameter and about two feet wide and it will be made of austenitic non-magnetic stainless steel (AISI 304 NL Grade) and the weight was increased to about nine and a half tons. Alloy Steel Plant (ASP) in Durgapur made this steel, probably the largest austenitic stainless steel billet made in India, at the right time.

Interestingly, as experts were discussing magnetism, a 15- year-old boy was playing with a magnet in a black burnt scrap. Suddenly he shouted “Not Catching…” Everyone was startled by the screams and it was understood that the burnt scrap had lost its magnetic property. This message was sent to SINP and ASP. Howrah started working on it and sent its report of rolling to the SINP, which was absolutely right, according to Dr Basu.

On the other hand, one Rajani Mukherjee, the owner of a factory at Dhulagarh in Howrah, also played an important role in coming up with a new idea. In fact, it was not possible to do the machining by rolling that two feet thick sheet, then this high precision parallelity and mirror finish was the biggest challenge.

Mr Mukherjee told CERN scientists: “If the research you are doing fails, your life will not be ruined. But my family and I will be ruined totally if you do not pass the inspection report. I have hundred percent faith in the skills of those machinists. That is why I have taken so many risks.”