Where machines of big science go to die
Seen above is a photo by Kate McApline of a decommissioned copper radiofrequency cavity from CERN's Large Electron Positron collider. The objet is now a decorative feature in CERN's garden. New Scientist has a feature on where big science goes to die. From New Scientist:
News of a project's death travels, and soon scientists around the planet are competing for the chance to acquire some serious hardware. A hospital may need particle beams for cancer treatment, say. There are also commercial uses for power supplies. Out of odd parts, whimsical scientists can construct works of art. And particle accelerators, with their beam-bending magnets, are mother lodes of iron and copper. The car you drive may contain steel that in another life formed the core of a cyclotron. With commodity prices soaring and serious amounts of valuable metals in big physics projects, some machines and experiments may be worth more now than when they were built (see chart). Could selling them to others lead to even bigger machines and more profound discoveries?Science supermachines in the scrapyard (gallery), Where do science supermachines go when they die? (feature article)
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Where machines of big science go to die
Where machines of big science go to quietly wait and plot.
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glows in the dark too
That's a steampunk uterus, right?
Most R&D technology I see would make awful art- usually it consists of blocky steel or white boxes. It's bad enough that I have come to the conclusion that almost anything technologically cool will appear as though it comes from the 70s...
It could just be my field though- although I'd venture a guess that any unusual shape you would encounter would have a strong practical requirement behind the decision to choose that shape.
I think a lot of military/DOD machines just get stored in hangars and warehouses. People are reluctant to try to salvage parts for the system because you often have to inherit the whole system (and be responsible for it in a property-management sense) to get at a part that MAY be useful to you.
Honestly, I often wonder if our safeguards against waste aren't more wasteful than the waste they are trying to prevent.
Fermilab has a lot of old bits and bobs laying around too, most of the big pieces are laid out in an attempt to look artistic.
A lot of stuff at the lab does get stored in warehouses, but it eventually gets reused. Many experiments that come in get cobbled together from the remains of old experiments.. there's never anything cheap about room-sized pieces of steel and if there's a secondhand one laying around you better believe they'll try to use it.
Imagine 'Junkyard Wars' staged in that sort of junkyard.
MDH,
Ah, that would be the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" episode.
I need that big copper doodad. I think I want to live in it.
#4 Allen: but what does it look like INSIDE the box? After all, that big copper dealiebob was probably hidden inside a boring white or beige box at one point.
It's like a dryer or a washing machine - they look positively mundane when the housing is on them, and then you "skin" them and discover all sorts of interesting bits and pieces lurking inside.
Yes, very reassuring.
Now that's cool. Just add a bathysphere hatch and some articulated treads and you've got the steampunk Civil War submersible that secretly won the war.
Visit Fermilab, Batavia, IL. This was mentioned by Xzzy, but I think it's a pretty interesting place. There are bar-magnets from the early versions of the accelerator that are used to line the roads near the Prairie Queen houses that house the physicists. There are banks of storage capacitors as sculpture. Fun.
A physics lab at my home University had a long running experiment to detect gravity waves from vibrations in a multi-ton super-cooled niobium bar. The amount of niobium involved was hugely expensive, and beyond their budget -- but the University finance department bought it as a long term investment, figuring that when the experiment was finally retired, they could sell the rare metal on the commodities market.
You would need a HUGE shopping cart to haul that thing away.
Just out of curiosity, as I actually AM an inventor on the side, has anyone on BoingBoing ever bought anything through this "Commerce Business Daily" site? I found it in a google search, and it looks like you have to BE a gov. agent to buy anything there, or an authorized company.
I was thinking I could use a thick Tungsten plate, or a few other things, and ebay doesn't carry that kinda stuff, but it looks like the average joe with some cash can't just buy things through it.
The only place that comes to mind for exotic scrap is *maybe* the black hole junkyard out near los alamos, NM. Any other ideas? Now THAT would make a great MAKE issue- where the hell do you find GOOD scrap, especially exotic stuff?
David, Sell Sell Sell!
A friend of mine bought an item that was not meant to be sold to the public and spent a decade dealing with men in black. Some scrap metal has a higher political and military value.
n9891q "There are bar-magnets from the early versions of the accelerator that are used to line the roads near the Prairie Queen houses that house the physicists."
So, if you drive too fast you wipe all of your passenger's credit cards? Genius.
@ Antinous: What was it that he bought?
Alpinekat is Awesome! Not only is she a good rapper with a sense of fun, but she has a good eye too! If I were single, I'd ask for a date!
bubble chamber?
Not to mention the "rocket garden" at KSC. Kind of a dismal place, since so much of it is slowly rusting away.
The tinkerers heart bleeds. Very pretty technical artifacts. Want!
Of course, to imagine these gadgets, or any of their components, being used in the health industry, you better imagine once more.
Any and every thing in that particular realm of the industry must be certified lawyer proof(TM), in order for anyone to even think about putting it on the market.
Which is a good thing, really, even without the (TM). For it might some day be used on, guess who... You.