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US Atom Smasher Shutting Down After Decades

Fermilab's Tevatron has been eclipsed by the Large Hadron Collider

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 30, 2011 7:22 AM CDT

(Newser) – Long before we feared the Large Hadron Collider would kill us all, the US boasted the world’s leading particle collider—and now, after 25 years, Fermilab’s Tevatron is being shut down. The machine’s biggest achievement was the discovery of the top quark, a subatomic particle that was the last-discovered “building block of matter,” the Washington Post notes. The Tevatron found three of 17 particles considered to be the fabric of the universe.

Tevatron technology was key to the development of MRI machines—and the Large Hadron Collider. “There’s no way the LHC exists without the Tevatron,” says a physicist. So why shut it down? The LHC is now the most powerful machine of its kind, and the Tevatron “has discovered what it could discover within its reach,” says another physicist. Not all scientists agree. Either way, however, the closing of the machine this afternoon points to a transition in physics from US soil to European.

Employees man the main control room that runs all the accelerators at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., including the Tevatron collider.
Employees man the main control room that runs all the accelerators at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., including the Tevatron collider.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
A physicist stands in front of a life-size photograph of one of two huge particle detectors at the Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., that gather data from the lab's Tevatron collider.
A physicist stands in front of a life-size photograph of one of two huge particle detectors at the Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., that gather data from the lab's Tevatron collider.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 23 comments
Boba-jef
Sep 30, 2011 9:18 PM CDT
In 1940 Albert Einstein, renounced his German and Swiss Citizenship and became a U.S. Citizen. Where do modern day equivalents to Einstein live and work now?
njgreen
Sep 30, 2011 3:39 PM CDT
"a transition in physics from US soil to European."   How true that is.  For example, the entire European banking system is now teaching us invaluable lessons about the law of gravity.
hopeandchange
Sep 30, 2011 8:26 AM CDT
"Either way, however, the closing of the machine this afternoon points to a transition in physics from US soil to European." Yep the money's gone baby. Luxury after luxury like this is going bye bye.  The welfare pot smokers, china and the lazy government teat suckers gobbled up all the wealth created by the "greatest generation".  Soon the usa will be nothing but another shit hole drug infested ghetto like Mexico.

 
physics • Large Hadron Collider • Fermilab • particle collider • Tevatron

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