Fermilab — Excursions Into Matter, Space and Time

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."

Comments

Fermilab Bison

[sonoronos]

One thing that the article leaves out, unfortunately, is another unique property of Fermilab - that it owns a herd of American Bison. Having "signature" animals at National Labs isn't unique to Fermi - for example, Argonne National Labs, also in Illinois, has a large population of the cream-colored Dama Dama "White Deer." However, while Argonne merely allows the deer to roam freely on its land, Fermilab Bison are actively cultivated by the lab, creating some really fine breeding studs, and acting as a sustainable way of preserving one aspect of the natural "Prairie" that is part of North American history.

Actually, it's on page 4

[apsmith]

The bison are indeed mentioned in the article.

Some things it doesn't mention though, that I recall from my brief summer there 20+ years back:

* the radioactive groundhogs. Every national lab I've been to seemed to have a colony of groundhogs, I guess they like the security.... At Fermilab, there was a burrow in the middle of a mile-long berm of dirt that acted as a beam dump to generate neutrinos (only neutrinos make it through that much matter without being stopped).

* Wilson's artworks - I assume they're still around. Robert Wilson was the instigator of the lab, and got it built on time and under budget. He was also a bit of a sculptor, and a number of his artworks were on the grounds around the administration building. In fact I think he designed the rather unique admin building too.

* the annual "race around the ring" - actually, maybe that's gone away since Leon Lederman's no longer the lab director. It was quite a challenge when I was there though; you can imagine a bunch of desk physicists and engineers trying to make it around the 3+ miles of the ring road in a reasonable amount of time...

Re:Actually, it's on page 4

[Xzzy]

Wilson's artworks - I assume they're still around.

They are. The power poles shaped like the Pi symbol are being replaced this summer, they even got the city of Batavia to pay for it.

One bit of entertaining lore (I can't confirm it's true but I've heard it from several lab veterans) about the art around the lab is the "symmetry" sculpture at the lab's west gate. It's a large arch with three limbs that towers over the roadway, and a visitor paying attention may notice the west-facing (public) side is painted completely black, and the east (lab) side is orange. The reason? Originally the sculpture was entirely orange. Stayed that way for almost 20 years. Eventually locals decided it was an eyesore, orange hasn't been a popular color since the 70's and I guess people got tired of it. So the lab painted the outside flat black to keep the peace with the community.

Orange and blue is still pretty common around the lab, the CDF detector building even got a fresh coat of paint last year. It is pretty ugly, but it's been that way for decades and it would suck to change it now.