Transporting a 15-Meter-Wide, 600-Ton Magnet Cross Country

necro81 writes "Although its Tevatron particle accelerator has gone dark, Fermi Laboratory outside Chicago is still doing physics. A new experiment, called muon g-2 will investigate quantum mechanical behavior of the electron's heavier sibling: the muon. Fermi needs a large ring chamber to store the muons it produces and investigates, and it just so happens that Brookhaven National Laboratory outside NYC has one to spare. But how do you transport a delicate, 15-m diameter, 600-ton superconducting magnet halfway across the country? Very carefully."

Comments

No tilt.. so lets move it over the ocean?

[boaworm]

>> The trip will be tense, because the ring’s massive electromagnet cannot tilt or twist more than a few degrees, or the wiring inside will be irreparably damaged. It will float from New York Harbor in June, down the East Coast, around Florida, up the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River by July.

That seems rather risky. Most ships would at one point or another tilt more than a few degrees to either side due to .. waves. No mention on if this is a gyro-stabilized barge perhaps...