Philosophy
When the Bevatron switched on at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the fall of 1954, it was the largest particle accelerator ever built, capable of producing energies upwards of six billion electronvolts.
The Bevatron's energy range wasn't chosen arbitrarily, but was specifically picked to provide the right conditions for creating antiprotons, then-theoretical particles as massive as protons but with negative electric charge.
When the Bevatron's first antimatter experiments started that summer, there was a mood of anticipation: Anxious experimenters jockeyed for time on the machine, principal investigators exchanged bets on whether or not antiprotons would be produced, and others just looked on hopefully.
One Bevatron research team made it to the front of the fray. Led by Emilio Segrè, the group's work was divided between two experiments. Researchers Owen Chamberlain and Clyde Wiegand would try to identify antiprotons by determining the masses and charges of particles produced by slamming protons into a fixed target. A second group, led by Gerson Goldhaber at Berkeley and Edoardo Amaldi in Italy, would record the collisions on photographic emulsions and look for the star-shaped energy bursts expected from proton–antiproton annihilation.
Anticipating Twitter by five decades, Wiegand placed a blackboard near the Bevatron's entrance and posted daily updates on the group's progress.
This snapshot shows that as of October 6, 1955 at 4:30 p.m., the group had detected 38 negatively charged particles with the same mass as protons. The ratio at the bottom of the board shows what the researchers were up against: these 38 sought-after antiproton signals had been sifted from a pool of nearly two million particle events.
Wiegand, an avid baseball fan, also took the opportunity to publicize the standings of the ‘55 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The score in the upper-right-hand corner may reflect his loyalties: Bums 4, Yanks 3.
The researchers spent two weeks making sure their findings were sound and defensible. Then, at an October 19 press conference, they announced that they had found the antiproton. The discovery earned Nobel Prizes for Chamberlain and Segrè in 1959.
The Bevatron kept producing physics for nearly 40 years, until the beam shut off in 1993. Demolition of the structure began in July and will take until 2011 to complete.
Bevatron
- Deceased--maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber April 18th, 1911 to May 11th, 2011 "Maurice Goldhaber, Atomic Physicist, Is Dead at 100" by Kenneth Chang May 17th, 2011 The New York Times Maurice Goldhaber, a physicist who delved into the intricacies of atoms and headed the Brookhaven...
- Deceased--simon Van Der Meer
Simon van der Meer November 24th, 1925 to March 4th, 2011 "Simon van der Meer, Nobel Laureate, Dies at 85" by Kenneth Chang March 11th, 2011 The New York Times Simon van der Meer, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 for a technological advance...
- Fermilab Particle Collider To Shut Down?
"U.S. Particle Collider Shutting Down" Dept. of Energy Lowers the Boom, Cites Current Budgetary Climate by John Conway January 11th, 2011 CBS NEWS via Discover In the fall, the Department of Energy’s High Energy Physics Advisory Panel recommended...
- Deceased--gerson Goldhaber
Gerson Goldhaber February 20th, 1924 to July 19th, 2010 "Gerson Goldhaber, world-famed physicist, dies" by David Perlman July 22nd, 2010 San Francisco Chronicle Gerson Goldhaber, an internationally known physicist who contributed to some of the most...
- Emilio Gino Segrè--early Atomic Physics
Emilio Gino Segrè February 1st, 1905 to April 22nd, 1989 One of those physicists of relative unknown status during the infancy of atomic physics. He is credited with the discovery of the first artificially synthesized chemical element not occurring...
Philosophy
Bevatron...antiproton--a bit of history
"logbook: antiproton discovery"
by
Nicholas Bock
October 2009
Symmetry
by
Nicholas Bock
October 2009
Symmetry
When the Bevatron switched on at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the fall of 1954, it was the largest particle accelerator ever built, capable of producing energies upwards of six billion electronvolts.
The Bevatron's energy range wasn't chosen arbitrarily, but was specifically picked to provide the right conditions for creating antiprotons, then-theoretical particles as massive as protons but with negative electric charge.
When the Bevatron's first antimatter experiments started that summer, there was a mood of anticipation: Anxious experimenters jockeyed for time on the machine, principal investigators exchanged bets on whether or not antiprotons would be produced, and others just looked on hopefully.
One Bevatron research team made it to the front of the fray. Led by Emilio Segrè, the group's work was divided between two experiments. Researchers Owen Chamberlain and Clyde Wiegand would try to identify antiprotons by determining the masses and charges of particles produced by slamming protons into a fixed target. A second group, led by Gerson Goldhaber at Berkeley and Edoardo Amaldi in Italy, would record the collisions on photographic emulsions and look for the star-shaped energy bursts expected from proton–antiproton annihilation.
Anticipating Twitter by five decades, Wiegand placed a blackboard near the Bevatron's entrance and posted daily updates on the group's progress.
This snapshot shows that as of October 6, 1955 at 4:30 p.m., the group had detected 38 negatively charged particles with the same mass as protons. The ratio at the bottom of the board shows what the researchers were up against: these 38 sought-after antiproton signals had been sifted from a pool of nearly two million particle events.
Wiegand, an avid baseball fan, also took the opportunity to publicize the standings of the ‘55 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The score in the upper-right-hand corner may reflect his loyalties: Bums 4, Yanks 3.
The researchers spent two weeks making sure their findings were sound and defensible. Then, at an October 19 press conference, they announced that they had found the antiproton. The discovery earned Nobel Prizes for Chamberlain and Segrè in 1959.
The Bevatron kept producing physics for nearly 40 years, until the beam shut off in 1993. Demolition of the structure began in July and will take until 2011 to complete.
Bevatron
- Deceased--maurice Goldhaber
Maurice Goldhaber April 18th, 1911 to May 11th, 2011 "Maurice Goldhaber, Atomic Physicist, Is Dead at 100" by Kenneth Chang May 17th, 2011 The New York Times Maurice Goldhaber, a physicist who delved into the intricacies of atoms and headed the Brookhaven...
- Deceased--simon Van Der Meer
Simon van der Meer November 24th, 1925 to March 4th, 2011 "Simon van der Meer, Nobel Laureate, Dies at 85" by Kenneth Chang March 11th, 2011 The New York Times Simon van der Meer, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 for a technological advance...
- Fermilab Particle Collider To Shut Down?
"U.S. Particle Collider Shutting Down" Dept. of Energy Lowers the Boom, Cites Current Budgetary Climate by John Conway January 11th, 2011 CBS NEWS via Discover In the fall, the Department of Energy’s High Energy Physics Advisory Panel recommended...
- Deceased--gerson Goldhaber
Gerson Goldhaber February 20th, 1924 to July 19th, 2010 "Gerson Goldhaber, world-famed physicist, dies" by David Perlman July 22nd, 2010 San Francisco Chronicle Gerson Goldhaber, an internationally known physicist who contributed to some of the most...
- Emilio Gino Segrè--early Atomic Physics
Emilio Gino Segrè February 1st, 1905 to April 22nd, 1989 One of those physicists of relative unknown status during the infancy of atomic physics. He is credited with the discovery of the first artificially synthesized chemical element not occurring...