August 10, 2008

• Fermi-tastic!!!

  

  On Wednesday, I made good on my earlier promise and was able to make the trip to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the world's largest subatomic particle accelerator, for now.  For those thinking "what?" - a particle accelerator takes various kinds of subatomic particles, places them on separate radio waves, sends them through 5 stages of increasing velocity and when they reach their maximum level of energy, collides them together, leaving the remains to be studied and analyzed.  The administration building (above) and some of the offices are visible, but all of the actual atomic activities occur underground.  The final stage of the process, the Tevatron, is an underground concrete tunnel four miles in cirumference capable of accelerating particles to 1 trillion Electron volts.  All I can say is wow.  You can't imagine the complexity of this process and the technology necessary until you see it, and probably not even then - the tour guide stuck to the basics but a significant portion of it was beyond my comprehension (Who knew atomic physics was so complicated?).  But no matter - this is the type of place you don't have know much about to realize you are in the presence of something spectacular.  I had a great time and want to thank my wife and son for following me around for three hours with minimal whining.  They got their turn on Saturday and took in Walking with Dinosaurs.  Fermilab was well worth the trip, and I highly recommend it for anyone in the Batavia, IL area with a few hours to kill.  I couldn't believe that such an important, powerful machine/facility was so easily accessible to the public.  Literally anyone could show up at the main building on Wednesdays at 10:30 with no reservations, no tickets, and no money and get a tour.  Hopefully, people take advantage of the fact.  Check out all the pictures here.

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