FERMILAB. what is it?

okay, ATS'ers. I live not far from Fermilab, but I've never known exactly of its use.

www.fnal.gov...

I know that they have the Tevatron (atom collider) there. (one small, one large, actually)
I visited the buffalo in 4th grade.
I've heard RUMORS of a missile silo under Fermilab. (which have been denied by many, so idk if it's true or not.)


I was wondering if you guys could help me out, if you had any interesting information on Fermilab. any questions for me, even, perhaps? I pass by there and have gone on the land a few times. (passed by it many times, though.)

any help/information/comments would be appreciated.
I'd like to know more about it, since it is close to me.
if any of you have any requests/questions for me, go ahead.
I am just eager to learn more about this place.

peace :]

I always believed it was a smaller scale, large hadron collider, a particle accelerator.

Cool beans to have a school trip there, our school trips were never that exciting.

I thought I'd bump this.. if that's okay. I was just looking for some responses.

en.wikipedia.org...

A small herd of American bison, started at the lab's founding, lives on the grounds symbolizing Fermilab's presence on the frontier of physics and its connection to the American prairie.[1] Some fearful locals believed at first that the bison were introduced in order to serve as an alarm if and when radiation at the laboratory reached dangerous levels, but they were assured by Fermilab that this claim had no merit.[2]

Fermilab's Tevatron was a landmark particle accelerator; at 3.9 miles (6.3 km) in circumference, it was the world's second largest energy particle accelerator (CERN's Large Hadron Collider is 27 km in circumference), until being shut down on September 30, 2011. In 1995, both the CDF and DØ (detectors which utilize the Tevatron) experiments announced the discovery of the top quark.

so. there's some more info, if that helps.

I grew up in Wheaton and, like you, have always wanted to know details. I've heard things across the board, and maybe there's a little truth to all of them. Recently I stumbled upon an article by a scientist working out of Fermilab, his whole thing was that our universe is purely holographic. Heady stuff. And then recently a friend was telling me that some guy he knows claims that due to nuclear experiments taking place there, the entire area is ridden with radiation. This guy claims that the cancer rates in Batavia are much higher than average. Don't know what to think about that. I tend to think they do more cutting edge, scientific experimentation, like with the atom colliders and all that. Wouldn't be surprised if there were really off-the-wall things, like goat/human hybrids or some weird # like that.

Interested to see what (if any) responses you get! By the way, where about are you?

reply to post by solargeddon


yes! definitely.
APPARENTLY. they were going to build the LARGEST one at Fermilab, but they would have had to wipe out an entire suburb! (and then something about considering Texas. but I know that the largest one is in Geneva, Switz. I'm not quite sure how the connection works? sorry.)


but yes, they even give tours. bikers are always biking on the path. it's a very beautiful place.
the town that is is located in (Batavia) actually has the main building (that the Tevatron is in) as part of it's "crest." (meaning, it's on all of the city signs, police badges, etc.)


as a field trip, I only remember visiting the Bison. we also went to a flight/NASA simulation place. SCI-Tech museum.
MANY museums/theatres/places in downtown Chicago. I was blessed with a nice school system as a kid, I will admit.

as REQUIRED reading in Highschool, we read 1984, Catcher in the Rye, Separate Peace, Hamlet, Brave New World, Romeo & Juliet, Animal Farm, etc. and DISCUSS how there is a GREAT possibility that THIS COULD BE OUR FUTURE.
now that i'm older, I've met friends from other places, who have said that those books were practically BANNED where they went to school. NONE of these books (my school's required list.) have been required reading for ANY other school than my own, and possibly a few surrounding cities.

sorry, I got a BIT off topic there. but I just find it kind of interesting.

reply to post by bacci0909


hmm. Is there something that I could get to measure the radiation in Batavia?!! I'd be very interested to learn...

Originally posted by bacci0909
Wouldn't be surprised if there were really off-the-wall things, like goat/human hybrids or some weird # like that.

Why would a physics lab be performing biological experiments?

It's no mystery. I've taken several tours of Fermilab when I lived in Chicago. Just sign up for one. The scientists there are pretty cool!

reply to post by Toromos


very cool, thank you!
I've also been considering taking advantage of an "interning" sort of job.

reply to post by novemberecho


Well I live in the UK, so my chances of ever visiting Fermilab, are greatly reduced, would love to visit ourNational grid though (will have to check if they do tours).

Off topic: We read, Animal Farm at school too, and The Machine Stops, the latter is a short story, but is fantastic nonetheless, there are elements of it in the Disney film W.A.L.L.E.

I believe Fermilab also had a role in the TV series FlashForward, it was cancelled after one season (boo), it was a good series, I think the particle accelerator was used in some way to bring about the blackouts.

Please allow me to introduce you to a little website called "google" . It should tell you everything you want to know about Fermilab.

Really, it's not like there's a mystery here - it's a particle accelerator lab whose operations are quite public.

reply to post by novemberecho


They built one in Texas but it never opened. It was way over the total predicted cost I guess and wasn't even half done.

Originally posted by novemberecho
reply to post by bacci0909

 

hmm. Is there something that I could get to measure the radiation in Batavia?!! I'd be very interested to learn...

yeah, a geiger counter

Originally posted by repressed

Originally posted by bacci0909
Wouldn't be surprised if there were really off-the-wall things, like goat/human hybrids or some weird # like that.

Why would a physics lab be performing biological experiments?

If you know so much about it, why would you respond to my comment and not the OP? I was only speculating, OP is looking for answers, which you apparently have

it's interesting.
right by Fermilab. is the Fox valley ice arena, which was built to be an emergency fallout center.
something tells me that Fermilab could be a high target if we were invaded.

Fermilab is AAAAAWESOME!!!
www.extremetech.com...

ANyway, besides that bit of yummy physics goodness and wireless neutrino treats, Tommaso Dorigo was saying on his blog that they actually DID find evidence of a light Higgs Boson. Fermi having a smaller collider just may prove that size really doesnt matter. Anyway, I hadnt heard any more about that since I think early last yr.

My father has worked at Fermilab for over 20 years, ive been there many times. As far as I can remember he always had a pocket radiation detector, he always talked about it like it was part of everyday work. I talk to him about his work all of the time he never has seemed to try to hide or not talk about any of it. Due to budget cuts they have been reducing the size of the workforce every year.

I actually believed in 2011 when MSM announced the defunding and discontinuance of their sole LHC on US soil, TEVATRON.

Apparently that was just a distraction from the rollout out over the ensuing years of one LHC after another, as here we are SEVEN years later following the alleged discontinuance and the current known total on American soil is now SEVEN particle colliders?

Sheesh. What ELSE aren't they telling us they are actually up to?!

a reply to: Planette

I don't really know how your video proves time line manipulation but I'll share with you what happened when I applied for a position with Fermi (I never received an offer).

It was an administrative position.

What struck me was how empty the place was. Maybe it was the time of day but it looked like a ghost town. They took me on a short tour and it seemed like a set from a movie.

One of the weirder things that just struck me as odd was a sign they had in the parking lot. It read "be careful backing up your problems are behind you". It was a normal parking lot and never in my life have I sign cautioning backing up. Something about that sign just struck me as off.

Anyway, they also have the largest magnet in the world. It always reminded of those time travel experiments that dealt with large magnets circulating within each other.

They used to have a website that let you track collisions to try to discover new particles. It looks like currently they are using argon to track neutrinos...which should be something like a Pink Floyd laser show. VENu Physics has an app that you can download to watch. a reply to: Planette