The MIT Bates Linear Accelerator Center will host an open house on Sunday, October 3 from noon-4 pm. Everyone (including family members) is welcome.
Bates is a world-class scientific facility that carries out frontier research in the field of nuclear physics. Many of the 85 scientific and technical personnel will be on hand to greet visitors and show them around the facility. Visitors can explore the huge detectors, OOPS (Out-of-Plane Spectrometer) and BLAST (Bates Large Acceptance Toroid), in the South Experimental Hall; see the control room; and try their hands at a scientific demonstration like Newton's Folly or figure out how we can get an object to roll uphill.
The central research focus at Bates is the study of the fundamental properties of the proton, including its magnetism and shape. A new major detector is under construction that will probe the fundamental origin of magnetism.
The Bates Laboratory is supported by the US Department of Energy and operated by MIT as a national facility. The lab is located off Route 62 (west) on 21 Manning Road. For directions and a virtual tour of the facility, go to the open house web site.
BATES25 SYMPOSIUM
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Bates is planning the "Bates25" scientific symposium on the MIT campus from November 3-5. The event will include talks on electromagnetic nuclear physics, where the field is going and where Bates is today. Co-chairs for the event, which has two dozen confirmed speakers, are Dr. William Turchinetz, former Bates associate director, and Dr. William T. Donnelly, a senior research scientist in the Department of Physics.
The cost of the event, including a dinner dance, is $125. For more information and updates, see the Bates25 web site.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 22, 1999.