Speech to honor SLAC on its 40th Anniversary
by
Raymond L. Orbach
Director
Office of Science
U.S. Department of Energy
October 2, 2002
It is a great pleasure to represent the Office
of Science, U.S. Department of Energy at this joyous Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center 40th Anniversary Celebration. We celebrate extraordinary
scientific achievements. We also celebrate contributions to our country, for
the service of the men and women who have been and are associated with SLAC is
legendary. Unselfishly, they have contributed to science, education,
government, national security, and world peace.
The Department of Energy is proud to have been a partner with Stanford University. We were present at the creation when, in 1954 the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) supported research and development and the design of the original accelerator, a linear electron beam striking a fixed target. President Eisenhower received proposals submitted by Stanford in 1957 to the AEC, NSF and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He decided to place the project with the AEC, and in 1959 hearings led to the official assigned responsibility. Construction of Project M , standing for “Monster” began in 1962, when Stanford President J.E.W. Sterling modestly remarked, “We should not be bound by Presidents or precedents.”
There was no precedent for what followed. In a truly historic re-enactment of the Rutherford experiment, where energetic electrons replaced alpha particles, and protons and bound neutrons replaced gold nuclei, SLAC scientists discovered in 1968 that more electrons bounced back with high energy at larger angles than could be explained if protons and neutrons were uniform spheres of matter. Thus, 57 years after Rutherford’s discovery that atoms were composed of a heavy small nucleus surrounded by an electron cloud, Friedman, Kendall and Taylor revealed, with their colleagues, Bodek, Coward, Riordan, Bloom, Bjorken, Cottrell, Breidenbach, Miller, Drees, Panofsky, Mo, Atwood, and DeStaebler, small dense objects moving around in protons and neutrons, tiny particles called quarks.
The partnership between the AEC and SLAC continued with the concept of colliding beams, as opposed to convention: energetic particles striking a stationary target. Accelerator experts claimed that the primary collisions would never be seen, and rejected the idea as late as 1959. It took full faith and support from the AEC, and the partnership led to the SPEAR storage ring for collisions between electrons and their anti-particle, positrons. This remarkable machine was the site of the discovery of particles containing the charm quark, the fourth quark type. A simultaneous announcement from Brookhaven and the Nobel prize for Physics was awarded to Burt Richter and Sam Ting in 1977. Later SPEAR would allow Marty Perl to discover the Tau Lepton, the third electron-like particle (after the electron and the muon), for which he received the Nobel prize in 1995.
The partnership between the AEC and SLAC was built upon mutual trust, and the ability of both parties to look into uncharted but profoundly rewarding futures. The problem of electron damping at SPEAR because of synchrotron radiation, a loss mechanism leading to practical limits on electron circular machines and the advent of electron linear colliders, proved a boon for other branches of science. Thus was born the era of new sources of light, led by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Project in 1973. At first, operated in a parasitic mode, this facility, later to morph into the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) under the far-sighted leadership of Arthur I. Bienenstock, became the first true user facility for intense light sources in the ultra-violet and X-ray regimes. ERDA, and then DOE, recognized and supported this new opportunity, forming a partnership that has literally changed the way business is done over a wide range of fields. Thus, over 1,700 of the current 3,000 SLAC users come to the SSRL each year, of which some 900, or more than 50%, are biologists. Most of these users are supported by the SSRL Structural Molecular Biology Program, jointly funded by NIH and the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Significant NIH contributions to SSRL upgrades add to this partnership between NIH and DOE. We congratulate Keith O. Hodgson, the current head of SSRL, who last week was awarded the E. O. Lawrence Award from the Department of Energy for outstanding contributions to Chemistry for his contributions to the development of synchrotron X-rays to the investigation of biological structure and function.
The SSRL, in conjunction with specialists in biophysics, chemistry, robotics and supercomputing, makes it possible to rapidly investigate the detailed arrangements of atoms, and understand the function of the thousands of proteins whose structure are coded by the genome of animals, bacteria and plants. Structural molecular biology research at SSRL has led to the understanding of how certain diseases develop, including Lou Gehrig’s disease and cholera.
These developments, and the ones that followed including the linear collider and the B Factory’s BaBar detector, are major advances in the tools of modern science. SLAC is famous for innovative and bold projections into the unknown, all the while being a respectful workplace, promoting and supporting the value of each individual, and maintaining excellence in matters of environmental concern, providing for the safety and health of the SLAC staff, users, and the general public.
This tradition stands upon the shoulders of giants. The first is Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, Director of SLAC for 24 years, from 1961 – 1985. His Deputy Director, Sidney D. Drell, served in that capacity for 29 years, from 1969 – 1998. When asked why he took the job, knowing full well that Pief didn’t need a Deputy, Sid responded “If I thought for a moment he did need a deputy, I never would have taken the job.” And Burton Richter, Director of SLAC from 1984 – 1999. We all owe a great deal of gratitude to these three, for they have selflessly served our nation and world and they have committed themselves to education and training. We are in your debt.
It is a great pleasure to
be with you today to celebrate this Institution, this fabulous facility, its
creators, and those who have profited from it. We look forward to Jonathan M.
Dorfan and his excellent team leading the Laboratory to new heights of
achievement in the years to come. To Stanford University, I wish to thank you
for your stewardship of this remarkable organization. To SLAC, the DOE is proud
of the mutual trust between us, and to be your sponsor. To the users, we
applaud your achievements. And to the public, we hope that you recognize the
jewel that is in your midst. To all, congratulations.
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Last Update: Friday October 04, 2002 by Bellevin