Konstantin Zioutas, spokesperson of the CAST experiment, gave a speech at the Memorial Ceremony at Bogaziçi University, Turkey

3 December 2007

Dear relatives, colleagues and friends of Prof. Engin Arik and the PhD-Student Berkol Dogan. No words can express my deep feelings and sorrow and grief about the tragic and painful loss of Engin and Berkol, which we loved all of us so much.

Engin was a renowned nuclear physicist with worldwide reputation. She pioneered the Turkish involvement in experiments like SMS, ATLAS and CAST at CERN. She was a very vital and clever person, full of energy, working tireless. She was very active and respected in Physics with broad knowledge and a lot of experimental expertise. She was fighting against the establishment – as I know from her – in order to promote particle physics in Turkey and get her beloved country more involved in European Science projects, with ILIAS-Axions network being one example.

Remarkably, while she spent her life for the benefit of Turkish science, she lost her life going to a Conference just to advance a Turkish accelerator project. As ancient Greeks used to say :
«Το πεπρωμ?νον φυγε?ν αδ?νατον». In turkish : Kadere karshi gelemezsin.

Engin was working with various Greeks the last two decades. Colleagues noticed a strong spirit of true friendship among Turkish and Greek groups in CAST. No doubt, Engin and her team contributed a lot for this to happen and all Greeks appreciated her engagement, all loved her. She developed a lasting friendship with my wife, Hero, and they were like sisters. When they separated in various occasions, tears rolled on their eyes. Unbelievable!

We will remember Engin as a wonderful lady, always positive, enthusiastic and go getter, with no project or task being too much for her. But, a professor’s reputation depends on her/his students. For Engin one REAL example was Berkol, our Berkol. What a wonderful, polite, highly appreciated and talented PhD-Student, absolutely sound and 100% reliable. The kid-brother impression used for Berkol tells you everything about him.

What a tragic loss, dear relatives, dear colleagues and friends of Engin and Berkol. Life was unfair to Engin and even more so to the young Berkol. Let me tell you this: there is nothing I could have done myself for both of them and I did not and vice versa!

My dear Engin, my dear Berkol, suddenly we live in two different worlds. We will have you for ever in our hearts and you know this. We are actually happy and proud to have had you as friends, as collaborators, as mother, as grandmother, as wife, as sister, as son and as brother.

WE LOVE YOU.

Konstantin Zioutas

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