In past Decembers, the laboratory recognized the importance of its future site, the prairie and its buildings.
A student learning about prairie ecosystems at Fermilab.
In December 1989, the prairie interpretive trail was named for Margaret Pearson, longtime Manager of the Public Information Office and an original member of the Prairie Committee.
The Feynman Computing Center was dedicated in 1988.
Feynman Computing Center, originally built as the lab’s Central Computing Facility, was dedicated on Dec. 2, 1988. It was named for Richard P. Feynman, a famous theoretical physicist.
This shows an aerial view of Weston, Illinois, in 1968.
The Atomic Energy Commission received 126 proposals recommending about 200 sites in 46 states for the planned National Accelerator Laboratory before its June 15, 1965, deadline for site proposals. It narrowed the list down to 85 and passed it to the National Academy of Sciences Site Evaluation Committee, which in turn narrowed the list down to seven in March 1966. Illinois had to withdraw its South Barrington site from the competition, leaving Sierra Nevada, California; Denver, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Brookhaven, New York; Madison, Wisconsin; and Weston, Illinois. AEC staff visited and evaluated each site before selecting Weston on Dec. 7, 1966. The AEC issued a press release announcing the selection of the site on Dec. 16, 1966.
The Illinois Accelerator Research Center at Fermilab was dedicated in 2011.
Fermilab broke ground on IARC, the Illinois Accelerator Research Center, on Dec. 16, 2011. IARC exists to facilitate partnerships between Fermilab and private industry for the commercial and industrial application of accelerator technology to medicine, energy and the environment, industry, national security, and discovery science.
Sept. 30, 1979, about 1:45 p.m.: SNAP!! @#@#@#@!!! Gerd Hartner, in the bow of his canoe at the race starting position, dipped his paddle in the water, gave a mighty first pull and, to his astonishment, broke it in half. Hilarity ensued among the cheering onlookers. Recovering quickly from the shock, Gerd was handed a replacement paddle so he and teammate David MacFarlane in the stern could start again.
This was one of the more bizarre happenings at the once-upon-a-time annual Fermilab Canoe Race around the cooling ponds of the 4-mile Main Ring particle accelerator. The race was one of the most exciting extracurricular competitions in the history of physics labs and was held on a weekend in early autumn for a few years starting in 1974. The event was founded and organized by Larry Allen, an operations specialist, with help from other employees and the Amateur Radio Club (egad, the dark ages before cell phones) for communications around the ring to monitor mishaps. The race was a time trial, with each of about a dozen canoes setting off at three minute intervals. Crowds (not large!) of spectators showed up, pizza and beer were provided afterwards, and trophies were presented to the winners.
It was a grueling experience. Paddling flat out for about an hour is hard enough, but the course is interrupted by 17 exhausting portages up and around the dikes through long prairie grass and much soft mud. Competitors included university and lab physicists, graduate students, engineers and other staff members, both men and women. Some had more enthusiasm than expertise — in one race I passed a team going the wrong way desperately trying to turn their canoe back to the right direction. Often people got soaked and muddied along the way and plunged into the water after the finish line to clean up and cool off.
The 1976 record was finally broken in 1980 by the powerful team of Steve Conlan and David Carlson in a racing canoe with professional paddles. They clocked “an astonishing time of 41:17.” As far as I can tell from the Fermilab archives, this was the last time the race was held. That year George paddled with B.J. Bjorken and came in sixth.
George is a legendary figure in North American wilderness canoeing circles, having paddled all of the great rivers, and most of the rest, in northern Canada over his lifetime, but that is another story (if interested, Google “George Luste canoe”). Sadly, he died of brain cancer in 2015.
The only year I beat George was in 1979 (he could not participate the other year I won). He used a racing canoe, which gave him a bit of an advantage over the rest of us in aluminum clunkers, but he handicapped himself by inviting the new director, Leon Lederman, to be his bowman. Leon got a shoe stuck in the mud on one of the portages and spent valuable time retrieving it, worried he and George might be disqualified if he came to to the finish line only half-shoed. According to FermiNews at the time, he claimed the difference between his time and mine was “statistically insignificant.” I suppose we would have to repeat the race many times over to prove him wrong!
On that note I encourage Fermilab to think about restarting this canoe racing tradition, since the Main Ring cooling pond course is unique in the world. Perhaps a separate kayak race could be included or even a paddleboard race (how about a kite-surfing race on a windy day? — that would be interesting, participants flying over portages, etc…). The canoe races were great fun and helped relieve some of the stress of carrying out the great physics mission of the laboratory.
John Martin, a former Fermilab user who collaborated on E25, E531, E516 and E691, is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.
For more on the Fermilab Canoe Races, see older issues of FermiNews: Oct. 10, 1974, p. 3; Oct. 2, 1975, pp. 1-2; Oct. 8, 1976, pp. 1-2; Sept. 28, 1978, p. 4; Oct. 11, 1979, p. 3; Sept. 25, 1980, p. 3.
On Nov. 21, DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar visited Fermilab and took a tour of the laboratory. Dabbar serves as the science and technology advisor to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and, as part of his portfolio, oversees the Office of Science and its national labs. Dabbar was previously the managing director for mergers and acquisitions at J.P. Morgan & Co. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and Columbia University, he served as a nuclear submarine officer aboard the USS Pintado.
During his visit, Dabbar met with the Fermilab management team, local Congressman Randy Hultgren, members of the DOE Fermi Site Office, and about 20 scientists, including seven recipients of Presidential and DOE Early Career awards. Discussion covered the lab’s mission and projects, including the international LBNF/DUNE project and the broad international participation in the project.
This is what the Main Control Room was like in the 2000s. But when there was an unscheduled power outage, what did these industrious folks do? Photo: Fred Ullrich
Sometime in the early 2000s, I remember, we had an unscheduled power outage. I had gotten a call at home at about 11 p.m. from someone in the Main Control Room to come in to restart my equipment since power restoration was imminent. So I made the 45-minute drive to the lab and made the right-hand turn from Pine Street toward the high-rise building (which is near the Main Control Room) just in time to see all the lights go off again. I had decided that under the circumstances, it was better for me to stick around the Main Control Room and wait for word from the power company or the people in the lab’s High Voltage Group than to make the drive back home just to turn around and come back at any moment.
Well, our group waited … and waited. We had already configured our equipment into a safe mode for when the power returned. There was nothing to do but immerse ourselves in all the line drawings sprawled out on the Crew Chief desk and debate what had happened. Nobody knew if the problem could be fixed quickly or if there was going to be an extended power outage. It would turn out to be a long wait into the morning.
Then, at about 8 a.m., I heard some commotion outside, so I decided to go see what was happening. Outside, in the Main Control Room parking lot, there was a pickup truck, and in the back of the truck was an 8-kilowatt generator. About four or five people were gathered around this generator. One person was pulling and pulling on the generator rope trying to get it started. Another one stepped in and took out the needle valve for inspection. Somebody else grabbed a hammer and started tapping on the float bowl of the carburetor. Try as they may, they just couldn’t get the engine started. Next the spark plug came out. They were all feverishly working on this generator with urgency as if it were an emergency.
I felt a sense of dedication and devotion to the lab seeing all these people pitching in to help get this generator started. I was still very new at the lab, so seeing all this teamwork made a very good impression on me. But I wondered, what was all the fuss about? What could they possibly be trying to power up after the power being off for 10 hours? The computer room? A sump pump? Was is something necessary to prevent disaster?
So I followed the huge industrial sized extension cord from the parking lot, through the doorway, and into the kitchen next to the Main Control Room, where it was plugged into a coffee pot.