I was walking west on Durant crossing Telegraph a block south of the UC Berkeley campus (see map below) when I saw a couple of good-looking yellow labs, probably less than a year old, crossing in the other direction. I was so focused on the dogs that I didn’t notice until I had passed them that they were being walked by none other than the chancellor of the university, Nicholas B. Dirks, and his wife. Gee, I wish I had gotten a photo with him but rather than run back across the street after him like a nut, I walked north to Bancroft and turned right to parallel the way he was walking on Durant. At the next street, Bowditch, I turned right again toward Durant to see if I could intercept him, which I did. I’m staying at the Berkeley Lab Guest House, a university facility . . .… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Bye-Bye, Bevatron
If you drive up the hill to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one thing you can’t help noticing is the large (approx. 125,000 sq.ft.) circular pit where the Bevatron is in its final stages of demolition. The Bevatron, as its name suggests, was used to make beverages. For example, the Bevatron could take enormous quantities of tequila, triple sec and lime juice, smash them together at the speed of light, and produce an excellent batch of margaritas. Wait, what? I’m now being informed that the Bevatron was in fact a particle accelerator put into operation in 1954 and used in the work of multiple Nobel Prize-winning physicists. Bye-bye, Bevatron. Read more →