Word: bevatron
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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McMillan's excitement went beyond the light experiment. Hundreds of technicians, engineers and scientists had worked since March at modifying the Berkeley Bevatron-which was designed for experiments with high-energy protons-to accelerate even heavier particles: nitrogen ions. As a result, McMillan announced at a press conference last week, nitrogen nuclei had been boosted to 36 billion electron volts, the highest energy level ever attained for such heavy particles in a laboratory...
Bare Nuclei. What the Bevatron apparatus had really done was create a kind of homemade cosmic ray, a big step in bringing the universe down to earth. Like cosmic rays from outer space, the particles shot through the Bevatron are really bare nuclei of atoms-in this case nitrogen-that have been stripped of their electrons and accelerated to tremendous velocities. By shooting these tiny bullets into a plastic target rich in hydrogen atoms, the Berkeley team was able to dissect the laboratory-produced cosmic rays. The collisions fragmented the nitrogen nuclei into every element lighter than nitrogen...
Scientists have no lack of chores for a machine with the capabilities of the Bevatron. Biophysicists, for example, are optimistic about using heavy ions, or other particles that can be made from these ions, to combat cancer, acromegaly (a rare disease in which facial features, hands and feet thicken) and Parkinson's disease. Unlike X rays and gamma rays, heavy particles do not damage healthy tissue on their way to a tumor; they do most of their deadly work only after reaching it. (Before the modification of the Bevatron, heavy ions could not be accelerated enough even to penetrate...