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ALMA Groundbreaking Ceremony Presentations
Arthur Carty, President, National Research Council of Canada
Good afternoon everyone. Bon après-midi. Buenos Tardes.
It is a genuine honour to have been asked to say a few words to you today
and I am delighted to be present at what I believe is the launch of one of
the most significant scientific initiatives of this decade.
But first of all let me admit that as a chemist, over the last ten years,
I have come to appreciate the value of astronomy not only as a fundamental
and important scientific discipline, but also as a unique vehicle for
encouraging national and international cooperation and for turning our
young people on to science and technology.
I am sure that everyone here today is convinced that the world is entering
the most extraordinary age of astronomical discovery.
Humanity has been gazing at the stars for millions of years and mapping
the heavens for millennia. Certainly we now have a deeper knowledge of the
chemistry and physics of the universe, but that in no way diminishes our
rapidly expending sense of wonder and excitement as new planets orbiting a
sun like our own are discovered and we probe deeper and deeper into the
origins of our universe.
Canada is proud of its contributions to this global voyage of discovery
and Canadian astronomers and their students have been and will continue to
be in the vanguard of this exploration.
More to the point, we are very proud of our track record and role in
international collaborations such as Gemini, the Canada France Hawaii
Telescope, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and others, to help build
observatories and innovative astronomical instrumentation.
This brings me to our role as a small, but we believe important
contributor to the ALMA project. The Atacama Large Millimetre Array was
the top priority for ground based astronomy in Canada's Long Range Plan
for Astronomy. The National Research Council and the astronomy community
in Canada worked very hard to secure the resources to make a meaningful,
long term commitment to ALMA. And through the strategy we worked out for
ALMA with NSF and AUI/NRAO which involves intellectual contributions such
receivers and software to ALMA itself and the building of a new correlator
for the Expanded Very Large Array, NRC will be able to fulfill the terms
of the North American program for radio astronomy.
So I think I speak for all Canadian astronomers in saying that we are very
happy indeed to be participating with the host country Chile, with NSF,
AUI/NRAO with the European Southern Observatory and other potential
partners in this big step forward for radio astronomy.
As Lloyd George once said and I quote "Don't be afraid to take a big step
if one is needed: you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."
Let us hope that this world Observatory ALMA, will not only bridge the gap
between the past and the future of millimetre wavelength astronomy but
will bring nations together in new and sustained levels of collaboration.
Thank you, merci beaucoup, gracias.
Modified on Monday, 05-Jan-2004 15:41:00 EST
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