A special visitor recently arrived at Brookhaven National Laboratory after a weeks - long cross - country trek , call for a homecooked meal and rain shower , likely .
effigy : The BaBar Magnet , viaSLAC on FlickrandSymmetry Magazine . photograph byAndy Freeberg .
The 20 - net ton superconducting magnet is called the BaBar magnet , and it wasrecently transported across the countryon the back of a motortruck from Stanford ’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California . In New York , it ’s going to start its second life — as the Crux Australis of an important update to the PHENIX sensing element at Brookhaven ’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider , where physicists will use it to analyze bankrupt speck and glean young insights about affair and the universe .
BaBar go far at Brookhaven Lab , viaBrookhaven National Laboratory on Flickr .
What was it comparable to move a 40,000 - pound sign super - advanced magnet across chiliad of miles of public road ? For one thing , it was slow go bad . The magnet arrived at Brookhaven in February after an almost two - hebdomad pleasure trip from California on the back of a semi truck , where it was bolted down with a custom gallus . But the move took way longer than two weeks in total — it was a years - tenacious planning process . Here ’s howSymmetry Magazine described the prep :
“ As you might imagine , ship this attractor requires very deliberate consideration , ” say Peter Wanderer , who heads Brookhaven ’s Superconducting Magnet Division and forge with workfellow Michael Anerella and Paul Kovach on engineering for the heavy move . “ You ’re not only treat with an oddly shaped and very heavy object , but also one that demand to be protected against even the flimsy bit of damage . This variety of high-pitched - field of battle , mellow - uniformity magnet can be surprisingly raw . ”
In the end , BaBar arrived safely . “ It was jolly insubstantial to finally see this awesome part of machinery arrive safe and sound at the science lab ’s main entrance , ” said the physicist in charge of the process , John Haggerty , in astatement on Brookhaven ’s web site .
SLAC on FlickrandSymmetry Magazine . Photo by Andy Freeberg .
But it ’s still plump to be a while before it starts work inside the PHENIX detector — getting BaBar ready for cargo ships took more than two years , and get it into berth will take at least twice as long . Brookhaven says the magnet will be working by 2021 . But what ’s six years , when you ’re studying the 13 billion - yr history of the macrocosm ? [ Brookhaven;Symmetry Magazine ]
Physics
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