Columbia Holds Wake For Historic Cyclotron

Pickens writes "They called it leviathan, behemoth, Big Bertha. At 12 feet wide, rising 7 feet above the cement floor and weighing an estimated 65 tons, the Columbia cyclotron, the particle accelerator built in the late 1930s by Columbia physicist John Dunning, played a crucial role in the dawn of the nuclear era. Dunning's experiments verified fission, established many of its properties, and, most significantly, demonstrated that the rare isotope Uranium 235, and not the more common U-238, was the more fissionable form of the element. 'In a week or two, they will dismantle it, and they will sell it for scrap,' says George Hamawy, Columbia University's director of radiation safety. 'This is the last chance to see it,' Hamawy added as students held a wake and contractors arrived to remove the cyclotron. 'We're going to make two-thousand-pound sections,' said one contractor before taking the cyclotron's measurements. 'We'll start slicing on Monday.'"

Comments

Iran perhaps?

[tringtring]

How about selling the scrap to Iran? They can add this to their existing "state-of-the-art" nuclear arsenal (which the country that literally floats in oil will only use for energy production purposes...) and justifiably claim that they now also have one of the pioneering pieces of nuclear tech in their arsenal...

Re:Mod parent down

[aleph42]

I think you missed the joke.

Anyways, I was assamed of that lame first post, so I tried to make it better with some recursive humor. I guess that will be my "I've got karma to burn" day.

He, I also removed my sig to see how many people will not notice I made the "mod parent down" post, and mod it down.

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slow day.