Peel and stick

Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab

Chip Edstrom routinely tidies the Fermilab Main Control Room to stay awake while working as an accelerator operator on the owl shift. One night, while cleaning equipment and peeling off decades-old labels, Edstrom decided to replace the old ones with fresh ones. In Russian.

"Considering the number of Russians in the Tevatron department at the time, it seemed like a fun idea," says Edstrom, who studied some Russian in college. "I should also mention that it was the midnight shift, which made the fun seem even better."

The labels, which mark two crucial monitors displaying the bend of the Tevatron's beamline as it moves through the tunnel, proved amusing—especially to the Russians.

Vsevolod "Seva" Kamerdzhiev is one of the many who have enjoyed Edstrom's creative grammar. On the labels Edstrom had written "this is horizontal" and "this is vertical," instead of simply "horizontal" and "vertical." "The words do exist—they just wouldn't be used in a case like this," Kamerdzhiev says. The grammatical errors were easy ones to make as only the endings of the words were incorrect, thus changing their meanings.

Still, Kamerdzhiev appreciates the gesture. "The Russian labels give a nice feeling of being welcome," he says.
Kate Raiford