Sunset on the Tevatron: Photos and Memories from a Fermilab Physicist

After 28 years of operation, the largest particle accelerator in the U.S. was shut down last Friday. BoingBoing asked me to write about the occasion.

Be assured that Fermilab is still slinging beams and doing physics! The Linac, the Booster, and the Main Injector are still operating, and there are plans for new experiments to re-use the three storage rings previously used for antiproton production.

Thank you for the information. I heard a short piece on NPR that made it sound like they pulled the plug on Grandpa, and he was going to be buried.

Dang, Pearson! You listen to them dang socialists 'n terrorists on NPR?

"All Things Considered' isn't just a slogan for the left!

Who is it a slogan for?

[/quote]Who is it a slogan for?[/quote]

An NPR program I listen to on the way home, Man! Us right-wingers have got to gather intelligence on them leftist somehow!

It was kinda like that. It was also like taking a ship that used to be the biggest. proudest ship in the world into the dock at the end of her final voyage.

I've walked every inch of the Tevatron's four miles of tunnels. I ran tests on several hundred of its magnets. I helped map the field of CDF's big superconducting solenoid. I've crawled underneath a 5000-ton detector, before we turned the beam on, to make sure there was nobody remaining in any obscure spot. I've steered 800-GeV proton beams into targets to make every Greek letter in the Particle Zoo.

I'm not yet used to the idea that the Tevatron's not going to run any more.

My own job involves planning for future operations, so that should make it easier to view the old machine in the rear-view mirror.

Who is it a slogan for?[/quote]

An NPR program I listen to on the way home, Man! Us right-wingers have got to gather intelligence on them leftist somehow! [/quote]

No, which segment of society or group is it a slogan for, is what I meant. I am a long-time listener of All Things Considered, and I lament how far downhill it and NPR have gone in the last few decades. At least Juan Williams, the very least of the NPRers, is no longer there, though I do think that whole affair was disgusting.