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Tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the straight-and-narrow dept.

Thomas Hawk writes "Last month Robert Scoble and I were able to do a video/photo shoot of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) with SLAC Emeritus Bebo White. SLAC is both the longest and straightest building in the world and is the home of three Nobel Prizes in physics. There is also a video tour available; part one and part two."

21 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Hardcore geek humor by pestie · · Score: 2, Funny

    "SLACware" jokes in 3... 2... 1...

  2. Longest building in the world? by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe it is. But I think that the time I had to pull several thousand feet of CAT5 through an old retail building that was constructed entirely of:

    1) Rat feces

    2) Razor-wire-lined plaster/lathe ceilings

    3) Meter-thick sedimentary deposits of cigarette smoke

    4) Did I mention rat feces?

    ... well, that sure seemed like the longest building in the world. We actually had places where we used a crossbow and fishing line.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:Longest building in the world? by MyLongNickName · · Score: 2, Informative

      A wall is not a building.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    2. Re:Longest building in the world? by Loudog · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I worked at SLAC for more than 6 years, night shift in the accelerator maintenance. It's not the rat droppings, it's the black widows you need to watch for. I once killed more than 20 of them -- and that was in one sector (100m), on one task (ranging). And that's only the ones that were in my way.

      I still miss the place, but like my current job better.

      -- Loudog
      -- Listening to the song of the klystrons

  3. Question by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Straightest building". Does this mean that the building is constructed to take into account the curvature of the earth? Granted this would only be less than half a meter (if I did the math right), but would seem to be important in this sensitive of a project.

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    1. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      No. It just means fewest mac users.

    2. Re:Question by Emnar · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, the building itself does curve with the surface. I have been in it, and if you kneel down on one end you can see the earth's curve looking toward the other end (when there isn't something in the aisle on either side of the cyclotrons).

    3. Re:Question by marked23 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm no physicist, but I think in order to "be straight" it must follow the curve of earth's gravitational field. Not sure if I understand that correctly, but if physicists say that an orbit is a straight line through space/time (in a sense), then it follows that a straight line inside a planetary gravitational field would have a curve to it.

    4. Re:Question by ortholattice · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not sure if I understand that correctly, but if physicists say that an orbit is a straight line through space/time (in a sense), then it follows that a straight line inside a planetary gravitational field would have a curve to it.

      The curve you are talking about is the path that a light beam would follow, not the curvature of the earth. Otherwise, the earth would look flat to someone on the surface, and of course it doesn't, since ships, etc. disappear over the horizon.

      That said, I don't understand why the building would follow the curvature of the earth, if what the other poster above who visited there is correct. Could it just be for practical building construction reasons, so that you can wash the floors without the water running downhill to the center? The high-speed particles in the accelerator are going to be affected negligibly by gravity and certainly will not follow the curvature of the earth. Perhaps the accelerator itself is offset at each end compared to the middle?

    5. Re:Question by athena_wiles · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think SLAC actually does NOT follow the curvature of the earth. I remember touring it as a fifth grader and being rather amazed when they told us that you can get on rollerblades at one end & have gravity pull you (albeit very slowly) toward the middle.

      Also, as one of the previous posters noted, if you have electrons going at relativistic speeds and you force them to curve to match the curvature of the earth, you're essentially going to be creating a sort of a syncrotron radiation source (SLAC does have one of these, but it's not in the main accelerator), and that energy loss isn't advantageous for the sorts of high-energy physics experiments they try to conduct in this accelerator.

  4. and so close to san francisco by Dolly_Llama · · Score: 5, Funny

    SLAC is both the longest and straightest building in the world

    I'm a gay particle physicist, you insensitive clod!

    --

    Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan

  5. Nothing Shouts Serious, Professional Scientist by Seumas · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nothing shouts serious, professional scientist like the name Bebo.

    1. Re:Nothing Shouts Serious, Professional Scientist by Seumas · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, those physicists sound completely legitimate. On the other hand, Bebo sounds like a little furry pokemon thing or some sort of cute anime character. Well, except Zoltan. That guy sounds like he's either a Transformer or he's trying to generate massive earth-based black-holes so he can hold the planet ransom for one million dollars.

      Also, your average scientifically-interested slashdotter apparently things that a refrigerator modified to catapult you a can of beer is awe-inspiring and amazing. I don't put much stock in the interests of the average slashdot reader. I'm only back here because Slashdot still picks up better stories than Digg and is less spammy and redundant about it. Good old slashdot. Like a nice drunk ex-girlfriend that will always answer a booty-call.

  6. Proton beam by mattr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I visited RIKEN's accelerator in Wako City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan last year and was told they were one of only three facilities in the world manufacturing proton beams for medical purposes. The other two were in Germany and at Stanford, but I was told that Stanford had closed its facility so now there are only two.

    Perhaps antimatter is better than proton beam, I don't know. Sounded like it is extremely expensive to run.. anybody know? I saw how RIKEN uses CAD to design thick IIRC bronze beam masks. It is underground and the whole building is built like a ship apparently, separate from the surrounding earth, which presumably helps it stably ride out earthquakes. They opened in Dec. 2006 the most powerful radioisotope accelerator, accelerating aluminum to 70% c.

    I am not a physicist nor do I work there but am curious about these aspects concerning the place mentioned in the article.

    1. Re:Proton beam by niklask · · Score: 2, Informative

      I visited RIKEN's accelerator in Wako City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan last year and was told they were one of only three facilities in the world manufacturing proton beams for medical purposes. The other two were in Germany and at Stanford, but I was told that Stanford had closed its facility so now there are only two.

      You are confused. SLAC != Stanford. SLAC is operated by Stanford under an agreement with the DoE. The accelerator at SLAC does not provide proton beams. It has been a electron-positron machine ever since operations started. It is currently supplying the BaBar experiment with electrons and positrons and it is also undergoing modifications to accomodate the LCLS, the Linacc Coherent Light Source.

      Perhaps antimatter is better than proton beam, I don't know.

      Better for what purpose? Remember, it is damn hard to store antiprotons, not to mention antimatter.

  7. AmTech Day by leighklotz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    SLAC is kind enough to allow the Foothiils Amateur Radio Society to hold a monthly outdoor/indoor amateur radio symposium and operating event there, called AmTech Day. Now that no morse code test is required for any level of amateur license in the US, it's a great time to get into amateur radio and experiment with digital communications, microwave technology, satellites, or even Maker style operations such as bouncing radio waves off the ionosphere with equipment you can build yourself.

  8. Re:I'm more interested in ... by Thomas+Hawk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't remember Bebo's real name but he has been going by Bebo all his life. If memory serves correct, he got the name when he was a child. I think it was what his sister called him and it's the name that stuck with him his entire life. He really is a great guy and gave us a great view of SLAC. I'm looking forward to going back there to take photos and film part III with Robert and Shel.

  9. Straight means completely straight by Bananenrepublik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That is the point about straightest building. They're accelerating electrons, so bremsstrahlung (= energy loss due to curves, grows very fast with decreasing particle mass, decreases slowly with the radius of curvature) is a real problem. In order to eliminate bremsstrahlung, the SLAC building doesn't follow the earth's curvature, but instead is straight in the same sense that a lightbeam is straigh.

    I once calculated the amount of energy the LEP (CERN's old huge accelerator, a 20km approx. circle) lost due to bremsstrahlung. IIRC it amounted to one 100W lightbulb every 10cm or 20MW of enrergy loss, simply due to the curvature.

    Currently a new huge linear accelerator is being discussed inside the scientific community. They want to use supraconducting magnets, which in terms requires large reservoirs of cooling liquids. Since liquids are subject to gravitation it may be that they will build it following the earth's curvature in order to keep the cooling circuits simpler. These issues haven't been decided yet.

  10. Re:So... by Thomas+Hawk · · Score: 2, Informative

    Bebo did mention this and actually showed us an apparatus that they use to realign the the accelerator. It's this big tube that sits beneath the actual accelerator tube and can be moved with Jacks. There is a target that a beam is shot through to make sure it is straight. Here is a photo of an intersection of the tube. http://beta.zooomr.com/photos/thomashawk/735653 They didn't have to realign it during the Loma Prieta earthquake though although they did lose power to the accelerator during that earthquake.

  11. NeXT and Amiga at SLAC by derinax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This takes me back to when I was a NeXT Campus Consultant at Stanford-- one of my duties was the maintenance and sales of NeXT hardware at SLAC. At the time, I was also an Amiga enthusiast, and was amazed to see how entrenched the Amiga was at SLAC. Mostly due to the encouragement of Willy Langeveld, some great scientific apps came out of SLAC for the Amiga: VLT, Hippograph (both Willy's), TeX (authored by Stanford alum Tom Rokicki); I'm sure there were others. I even saw an A500 out on the floor, in production.

    The biggest impression I had of SLAC in the late 80's was of gigantic, warehouse-sized rooms filled with massive, unused rusted machinery. Reminiscent of the Orrery in Oblivion, or Oghma's lair from Dark Crystal. Weird and amazing place; but perhaps my memory has augmented the tour a bit.

  12. Worst video? by Windrip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Part II is 7:44 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

    I cannot believe these guys had an insider tour of SLAC and they post cheesy tourist shots of a FUCKING COOLING TOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!

    No wonder Engineering/Physics &c suffers in this country.

    Oh, and I also resent Bebo's comparison of chemistry to postage stamp collecting. But at least he has earned his "I'm a HEPP*" stripes.

    *High Energy Physics Prick

    of course HEP also means How Easily Phooled...