MIDDLETON, Mass. -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will visit the MIT Bates Linear Accelerator Center in Middleton, MA on Tuesday, April 13. Secretary Richardson will meet young researchers, tour the facility and meet with the employees. The Secretary recently provided strong support of the funding for the Department of Energy Laboratory, which is operated by the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science as a national user facility.
The Bates Laboratory is a center for world-class experiments in basic nuclear physics. The work that is done at Bates leads to a better understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and is an important resource in educating young physicists. About 120 Ph.D. students have been educated and trained at the Bates Laboratory. These PhDs are in academic positions, industry, and research worldwide.
The research at Bates is defined and driven by a community of 200 users from 50 institutions both from the US and abroad. The users carry out frontier experiments in nuclear physics using high quality beams and facilities at Bates.
A staff of 85 scientific and technical personnel operates and maintains the facility.
Knowledge gained from nuclear physics is essential to our understanding of the workings of the universe. Past experiments in nuclear physics have provided benefits well beyond the original research. Knowledge obtained as a result of nuclear physics has advanced the treatment of cancer, CAT scans, MRIs and many other medical treatments and has also advanced power generation and national security.
Tuesday, April 13, 1999
9:25: Energy Secretary Arrives at Bates Linear Accelerator Center
Open to Photographers
9:45-10:05: Meet with Representatives of Lab Researchers (Topic: Education at the Frontiers of Science)
Open to the Media (Library)
10:55-11:05: Media Availability with Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson
