Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
A piece of history has never been so heavy.
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
With a little elbow grease, you can build a cyclotron at home. The concept is pretty simple. Two D-shaped conductors separated by a short gap.
Reviled editor michael reported on it back in 2002.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/20/1626204&tid=134&tid=14
Definitely worth trying out once.
Once.
Mod parent down; he's unapropriate (think of the Godwin laws!), completly fails to nail that pathetic pun he might have been aiming for ("owning a piece of history..." would have definitly been better), is unfunny, and most of all he STOLE MY FIRST POST!
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
No matter how large, complex, or beautiful anything we make is, it is all essentially disposable. We inevitably attach sentiment to things like cars or houses or boats or gigantic cyclotrons but they are just...things.
Look, the Navy has all this romantic imagery associated with plying the seas in deadly warships (read "Choosers of the Slain" by Kipling) but almost all ships end up as razor blades or sunk for target practice. Likewise a lot of us have fun tinkering with computers...but over the past 5 years haven't we all broken down and rebuilt assorted Frankenboxes for this project or that project a hundred times over?
It's the adventure of DOING stuff with the things that is important, not the things themselves. As impressive as the cyclotron is, it's the science and discovery that are really meaningful.
Some of its parts have been sent to the Smithsonian years ago. All that's left is the magnet.
I wonder how strong that magnet is.
I bet they could bring in more money if they didn't scrap the whole thing, but instead sold small slices of it. No way they could sell ~65 tons worth of slices, but they could get a lot more if they sold off some of the historic piece of equipment. I'd buy a slice.
1 - Dismantled cyclotron.
2 - Catapult.
3 - Orbital assembly robot.
4 - More catapult.
5 - ???
6 - Profit!!!
Proving once more that if your problem can't be solved by extensive use of catapults, it probably doesn't deserve being solved at all.
Think they'd let us purchase a small chunk for esoteric value? The machine itself isn't leaking radiation and I know there's a ton of nuclear physicists out there that would love a small chunk. Plus it'd prolly be worth more than selling it for scrap if they opened it to the scientific community.
The story is tagged as "hardhack" I suppose that's right, as in "hacked to pieces"
Still seems an inappropriate use of the tag...
Sheldon
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
the ROOM may be, but the CYCLOTRON wouldn't be.
assuming you get the beam focussed after filament replacement, etc, the only danger to anything except credit cards, people standing between loose steel and the moosey magnet, etc. is behind the target window in the chamber casting.
and they probably had an old cardboard sign, faded, near that point.
this is why stuff like this is built underground with no easy access. Mother Earth is your shield, suffering those protons and (later) neutrons for you.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
No and no. This is (was) not an enrichment device. It is a research device. You might be thinking of a calutron, which was a primitive enrichment device.
Magnet, eh?
Note to self: leave hard drive at home.
Like most large items made of concrete, its reinforced with steel, like rebar. The parking lot is stained a lovely brown from it. In summer, the whole lot of them are covered in vines. Very Logan's Run.
That's not a cyclotron. That's a cyclotron.</dundee>