rmw@ihnp4.UUCP (07/07/83)
Fermi National Accelerator Lab, our next-door neighbor, this week recaptured its status as the world's most powerful "atom smasher" by accelerating a proton beam to 512 GeV in its new superconducting ring. The new cyclotron, which is build underneath the old one and has a circumference of 4 miles, is supercooled to 4 degrees above absolute zero, making it most likely the world's largest cryogenic machine. Fermilab has its own Helium plant and its own magnet production facility. The developers think that ultimately the new ring should be able to run at about 10 times the new record energy level. The new ring is controlled by a network of micro's (mostly Z80's, I think) augmented by a variety of mini's.