Sunday, November 13, 2016

November 13, 1948 -- Atom Smasher on Its Way



November 13, 1948 – Nine trucks leave the South Chicago works of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, carrying “monsters of steel and copper” [Chicago Tribune, November 14, 1948] to the University of Chicago, where the components of the school’s synchro-cyclotorn will be assembled at Fifty-Sixth Street and Ellis Avenue.  The shipment tips the scales at 300 tons with each of the 14 magnet coils, wound at the New York naval shipyard, measuring 20 feet in diameter.  The stainless steel vacuum chamber is 18 by 17.5 feet with a depth of 26 inches.  The atom smasher came together amazingly fast . . . it was only January 13 that the university placed an order with the Bethlehem Steel Company for the 4,140,000 magnet that would form the heart of the machine.  Above, the cyclotron structure awaits its component parts as 1948 comes to a close.

No comments:

Post a Comment