Multiplication by Infinity: Brookhaven

Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base. Its name stems from its location in the greater area of the Town of Brookhaven.

[edit]Operation

Brookhaven, which originally was owned by the Atomic Energy Commission, is now owned by the Commission's successor, the United States Department of Energy, which subcontracts the actual research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. It was operated by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), from 1947 until 1998 when Associated lost the contract in the wake of a scandal when tritium leaked into the Long Island Central Pine Barrens groundwater on which it sits.^[1]

Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York forecast office of the National Weather Service.

BNL is staffed by approximately 3,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. Discoveries made at the lab have won seven Nobel Prizes.

The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and postal code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km²) area.

Major programs

Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, its mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

Nuclear and high-energy physics^[2]
Physics and chemistry of materials^[3]
Environmental^[4] and energy research
Nonproliferation^[5]
Neurosciences and medical imaging^[6]
Structural biology^[7]

Major facilities

Aerial view of the NSLS.

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark-gluon plasma.^[8] Until 2008 it was the world's most powerful particle accelerator.
Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), it is used for the study of nanoscale materials.^[9]
National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), the lab's most popular machine which is said to have attracted more researchers in the world than any other facility.^[10] It was involved in the work that won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[11]
Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab's Nobel prizes.^[12]
Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.^[13]
Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world's largest electrostatic accelerator.^[14]
New York Blue Gene supercomputer, an 18 rack Blue Gene/L and a 2 rack Blue Gene/P massively parallel supercomputer that involves a cooperative effort between Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University.^[15] It is the world’s 5th fastest supercomputer and the worlds 2nd most powerful for open access research as of 2008.^[16]

Plans

Artist conception of the NSLS-II.

New synchrotron

The lab is building NSLS-II, which in 2015 will replace the NSLS after more than 30 years of operation.^[17]

Off site contributions

It is a contributing partner to ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors to be located at a new powerful nuclear accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is currently operating near Geneva, Switzerland.

Brookhaven is also responsible for the design of the SNS accumulator ring in partnership with Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Public access

The lab is open to the public on Sundays during the summer for tours and special programs. The public access program is referred to as 'Summer Sundays' and takes place from mid-July to mid-August, and features a science show and a tour of the facilities. The laboratory also hosts science fairs, science bowls, and robotics competitions for local schools. The Lab estimates that each year it enhances the science education of roughly 24,000 kindergarten to 12th grade LI students, more than 100 undergraduates, and 550 teachers from across the United States.