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Fermilab — Excursions Into Matter, Space and Time

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the lots-of-good-work dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Fermilab is one of the great physics research facilities in the U.S. It is mainly known for its Tevatron proton/anti-proton accelerator to help physicists understand how materials interact with each other. TG Daily has a extensive article detailing Fermilab's accelerator chain and the work that is being done there. It's an interesting read, especially since many of us won't have a chance to visit Fermilab and the fact that the Tevatron accelerator is scheduled to be shut down next year."

4 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Not like Fermilab is shutting down by manasclerk · · Score: 2, Informative

    They're working on getting the International Linear Collider to be based between them and Argonne National Laboratory, a few miles away. Of course, that will probably just be a really deep, really long tunnel, unless you're into the engineering of these things.

  2. Re:Fermilab Bison by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually that was on page 4
    Bisons
    6800 acres of land provide lots of opportunity to preserve vegetation and wildlife. Arriving at Fermilab through its signature gate in fact feels much more like arriving at a park rather than a high-energy research site. Vegetation is brought back to its original prairie state; wildlife includes 277 bird species, 54 species of butterflies, about 18,000 Canada geese during migration cycles, more than 350 deers - and 45 bisons.

    --
    500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
  3. Re:Fermilab Bison by Octopus · · Score: 2, Informative

    I grew up near the edge of Fermilab, so did most of my family. Pretty easy for kids to take a bike ride straight in there. Lots of weird anomoly rumors, too, which is natural.

    I think security clamped down suddenly after 9/11.

    If anyone's interested in some of Fermilab's history and culture, check out Leon Lederman's "The God Particle".

  4. Re:Good followup to the LHC story by bockelboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    I understand Fermilab and other American institutes will be involved in processing the deluge of data produced by LHC.
    I would say so! FNAL (plus 7 other universities) will probably have around 50% of the processing capacity for the CMS project (one of the LHC detectors).

    Just because the detector isn't physically located at FNAL doesn't mean their contribution isn't significant. The whole design for grid-computing is that a physicist can be just as effective on their laptop in Starbucks as sitting next to the detector.

    A lot of brain power is still there. They're great people to work with too.