One year ago, the 50-foot-wide Muon g-2 electromagnet arrived at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois after traveling 3,200 miles over land and sea from Long Island, New York. This week, the magnet took the final few steps of that journey, moving across the Fermilab site and into the new building that now houses it.

Four years ago, Fermilab accelerator physicist Arden Warner watched national news of the BP oil spill and found himself frustrated with the cleanup response. “My wife asked ‘Can you separate oil from water?’ and I said ‘Maybe I could magnetize it!’” Warner recalled. “But that was just something I said. Later that night while I was falling asleep, I thought, you know what, that’s not a bad idea.” Sleep forgone, Warner began experimenting in his garage. With shavings from his…