history

On February 28, 1967, Robert R. Wilson became the director of the National Accelerator Laboratory.

As we enter the second month of Fermilab’s 50th year, we look back on Robert Wilson assuming the lab’s first directorship and revisit the lab’s first experiment, along with other memorable milestones.

Nearly 200 local luminaries came to Fermilab to hear from laboratory leadership and, at 2017’s first Arts and Lecture Series talk, from scientist Chris Quigg about Fermilab’s greatest hits.

Fermilab’s beginnings can be traced to a 1963 report by a panel of U.S. scientists led by Norman Ramsey. In the 50 years since, Fermilab has grown to a laboratory of 1,800 employees, and scientists from 44 countries come to Fermilab to participate in its forefront particle physics programs.

Many visitors to Fermilab reasonably conclude from its name that Enrico Fermi worked at the laboratory, but he never did. In fact, he died in 1954, years before scientists even officially recommended the construction of a U.S. accelerator laboratory.

As part of our year-long recognition of Fermilab’s 50th anniversary, we will feature a few important milestones in the laboratory’s history every month.

Edwin L. Goldwasser, deputy director of Fermilab at its founding in 1967, died on Dec. 14. He was 97.

The setting provided by founding Director Bob Wilson’s creative design of the laboratory and his many sculptures are an enduring source of pride for those associated with Fermilab and for the surrounding community. One of the sculptures that has gained widespread attention is “Tractricious.”

Robert Wilson was a man born out of his time. He lived in America from 1914 to 2000, but he really belonged to the central Italy of the 1500s. One ever-present reminder of this is the sculpture that sits in the reflecting pond in front of Wilson Hall.

A furry critter and its four-mile trek through an accelerator pipe comes to the lab’s rescue in its early days.