Past Spotlights
November 1, 2009 -
Thirty-five years ago this month the world of physics was dazzled when two separate experiments
at SLAC and at Brookhaven independently discovered the first of a new set of particle states, the J/Psi particle.
The events were dubbed the November Revolution.
October 21, 2009 - November 1, 2009
Twenty years ago this month the Bay Area was struck by the Loma Prieta
earthquake. Read about the effect on SLAC and its recovery in "SLAC
Survives a Pretty Big One" in the December 1989 issue of the SLAC
Beam Line. Other local archives share memories:
October 19, 2009 - October 20, 2009
New Archives Month Contest! Share the inside story on working at
this lab and celebrate the many and varied contributions of all sorts of
specialists to its daily science and science support activities. Do you
have a significant item in your work area right now? Something you use or
have used - or see or have seen - on a regular basis that has special
meaning to you in your work? Take a photograph of the item and write a
few words explaining its significance. See our contest page for more details.
October 15, 2009 - October 19, 2009
Twenty years ago this weekend the Bay Area was struck by the Loma Prieta
earthquake. Read about the effect on SLAC and its recovery in "SLAC
Survives a Pretty Big One" in the December 1989 issue of the SLAC
Beam Line.
October 1, 2009 - October 15, 2009
New Archives Month Contest! Share the inside story on working at
this lab and celebrate the many and varied contributions of all sorts of
specialists to its daily science and science support activities. Do you
have a significant item in your work area right now? Something you use or
have used - or see or have seen - on a regular basis that has special
meaning to you in your work? Take a photograph of the item and write a
few words explaining its significance. See our contest page for more details.
August 21, 2009 - September 30, 2009
On August 21, 1969, the Atomic Energy Commission, predecessor to today’s Department of Energy,
made the final
payment to Stanford University for the construction of the original SLAC linac, experimental endstations and
supporting infrastructure. Associate Director of the Business Services Division Fred V. L. Pindar (seated, second
from left) is seen signing a bit of paperwork while members of the AEC and SLAC staffs look on. Standing directly
behind Fred Pindar (wearing sunglasses) is Win Field, SLAC staff counsel.
August 13, 2009 - August 21, 2009
BaBar was dedicated on August 13, 1999 with a celebration
honoring international collaboration. Participants, sporting souvenir BaBar caps, gathered on the SLAC Green to
listen to speakers including Martha Krebs, Director of DOE's Office of Science as well as respresentatives from
SLAC and the collaboration.
August 1, 2009 - August 13, 2009
On August 1, 1964, Sheldon Glashow and James Bjorken published a paper in Physics
Letters in which they coined the term "charm" for a theoretical new particle, the charm quark. The paper is cited more than 550 times in
the SPIRES-HEP database.
May 1, 2009 - July 31, 2009
35th Anniversary X-ray science at SLAC began with the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation
Project (SSRP). A
successful pilot
project at SPEAR led to the National Science Foundation funding the SSRP which began operations in May 1974, 8
months ahead of schedule. SSRP was the world's first synchrotron radiation hard x-ray light source based on an
electron storage ring and led to a revolution in x-ray science.
April 14, 2009 - April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 11 marked the 20th anniversary of the first recording of a Z° particle by the Stanford Linear
Collider. The feature article in the April 1989 issue of the SLAC employee newsletter, SLAC Beam Line,
crowed, "The long wait is over," but Burton Richter's lab director's column in the same issue cautioned staff that
the SLC still had a long road ahead of it.
It was 20 years ago this month, in that same issue of SLAC Beam Line, that the Stanford Synchrotron
Radiation Laboratory announced a major advance in the imaging of human coronary arteries employing dual beams of
synchrotron radiation produced in a dedicated run at the SPEAR storage ring.
Read the entire April 1989 issue of the SLAC Beam Line
online.
January 9, 2009 - April 14, 2009
We continue to reap the rewards of our Archives Month contest last October. Just
before the winter shutdown, Ray Wallace, formerly of Power Conversion, brought in a stack of newsletters that he has
saved over the years.
The contest is over, but we are still accepting donations. The list has been updated.
November 10, 2008 - January 9, 2009
And the winners of the random drawing are...
- Cherrill Spencer
- David Aston
- John Halperin
- Ruth McDunn
We thank everyone who participated in our Archives Month contest. We received 112
gap-filling newsletter issues
from present and former lab staff. For more details see SLAC
Today (11/4/2008).
Cherrill Spencer also earned a special commendation prize for the highest number of valid entries which filled
75 gaps!
October 1, 2008 - November 10, 2008
The SLAC Archives & History Office is celebrating American Archives Month (October
2008) with a contest to help
complete our collection of SLAC published newsletter. Archives staff have identified gaps in our holdings of SLAC
popular periodical publications—like SLAC News, Beam Line, The Interaction Point (TIP), SSRL Users Newsletter,
Computing@SLAC, etc.
May 6, 2008 - September 30, 2008
We are thrilled that Olof Hallonsten, PhD student at Lund
University in Sweden, is diligently researching part of SLAC's history of photon science. His aim is to explore the
multiple and complex relationships between scientific conduct in a laboratory and the characteristics of instrumentation and infrastructure through the case of synchrotron light facilities. He is using SSRL, MAX-lab, and ESRF as his case studies. We look forward to the completion of his thesis.
For a peek at his work see “Why large research infrastructures can
be built despite small investments? MAX-lab and the
Swedish research infrastructure,” part of the SISTER working paper series, co-written with Mats Benner.
9/15/2009 UPDATE: Olof successfully defended his thesis Small science on big machines last
Friday.
February 7, 2008 - May 6, 2008
Wolfgang "Pief" K. H. Panofsky died of a
heart attack on the evening of September 24, 2007. Pief was the founding
director of the lab
and led SLAC until 1984. He
remained active and engaged until the day of his death.
September 25, 2007 - February 7, 2008
Wolfgang "Pief" K. H. Panofsky died of a heart attack on the evening of September 24, 2007. Pief was the founding director of the lab and led
SLAC until 1984. He remained active and engaged until the day of his death. We will miss him very, very much. As a way of celebrating and remembering him, we'd like to collect any of your "Pief Stories" that you would like to share with us,
be they funny, serious, casual, profound, or somewhere in-between. Staff
Memorial for Dr. Panofsky, September 28, 2007 (streaming video)
May 2005 - September 25, 2007
Welcome to our newly renovated web site. Be sure to check out the new Digital Resources and Oral History pages.
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