 |
| Photo: Brad Plummer, SLAC |
Holy beam line! The red phone is ringing
When a villain threatened Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon picked up a bright red phone to call Batman. During the Cold War, a Moscow-to-Washington "red phone" served as a hotline to prevent nuclear attacks.
Now SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has its own red phone to avert the types of crises found in accelerator physics–things such as poor beam quality and mechanical troubles. While not as dramatic as the Joker terrorizing Gotham City, these situations do require immediate warnings and rapid adjustments to save valuable time, money, and data.
The phone line runs between two control rooms in two separate buildings. One controls the Linac Coherent Light Source, the world's most powerful X-ray laser; the other controls one of its primary experiments, known as SXR for Soft X-ray Material Instrument, which begins commissioning in May.
"An experiment is only as strong as its communication link," says Bill Schlotter, an SXR instrument scientist. When the red phone rings, "the call is not just for the person on the line, but for the rest of the SXR control room, too." No dialing is necessary; in true hotline tradition, a scientist need only lift the receiver in one control room to establish a direct connection to the other.
When they hear the red phone's distinctive, old-fashioned "brring brring," Schlotter says, "everyone will know to pay attention."
Lauren Knoche
Click here to download the pdf version of this article.
