Brookhaven National Laboratory

Facility retains research importance

Web posted Monday, November 13, 2000

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By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer

Although the nation rushed after World War II to enter the nuclear arms race, it also established several laboratories and plants to research peaceful uses of atomic energy.

One of those facilities, Brookhaven National Laboratory, remains a force in physics today, with its self-dubbed, one-of-a-kind ``big machines'' allowing scientists to perform research that would be impossible elsewhere.

Brookhaven was founded in 1947 on the site of the Army's former Camp Upton on Long Island, N.Y. By 1950, the lab had opened the first of three nuclear reactors for research purposes, according to a history published on Brookhaven's Web site.

Two years later, the lab opened an even more influential facility, a particle-physics accelerator called the Cosmotron, that eventually led the lab to its first Nobel Prize in 1957.

In 1960, the lab built an even more powerful device called the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron; its abilities led the lab to discoveries that yielded additional Nobel Prizes in 1976, 1980 and 1988. Still another accelerator opened in 1970.

The lab also has done extensive research in nuclear medicine. Brookhaven opened the first hospital dedicated to the field in 1950, and opened a nuclear reactor devoted to medical research within the decade. In 1973, the lab opened a plant to produce isotopes - different forms of basic atomic elements - for medical research.

Brookhaven still treats cancer patients at a radiation-therapy facility opened in 1991.

Today, Brookhaven operates on a 5,300-acre site on Long Island. It employs more than 3,000 people, and it has an annual budget of about $400 million. More than 4,000 scientists visit Brookhaven each year to use the lab's facilities for research, according to a lab fact sheet.

According to the lab's Web site, more than 600 research programs are ongoing at Brookhaven, in fields ranging from particle physics to drug addiction.

Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409.

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