Photo courtesy of SLAC
As part of this week's New Horizons in Science conference in Palo Alto, 40 science writers took a tour of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. MSNBC's Alan Boyle was among them, and wrote a vivid wrap-up on the lab and its work on his Cosmic Log blog:
Most atom smashers are built like racetracks, with powerful magnets bending subatomic particles into circular routes. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, built in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, is something completely different: It's basically a 2-mile-long dragstrip that whips up electrons to shed light on the structure of matter.
SLAC's straight-shot structure hints at the shape of atom smashers to come - such as the future International Linear Collider. And it makes for one heck of a jogging trail.
"There's actually a race where they go down to the accelerator and back - it's four miles," said SLAC graduate student Chris McGuinness, who is an avid mountain climber as well as a researcher working on the next generation of laser-powered particle accelerators.
Next month's 37th annual SLAC Run and Walk will take place outside the accelerator's housing. But at the same time, 25 feet beneath the surface, electrons and positrons will be running their own races down SLAC's straight track.
