Fermilab 50th Anniversary

Alyssa Miller works as an operator in the Accelerator Operations department. In this image she is at her Main Control Room accelerator controls console.

Cathy Barker of FESS Fermilab Transporation Services gets us to where we need to be...Thanks Cathy!

Often, it is all in your perspective as this photo of Wilson Hall shows.

Maurice Ball at a Main Control Room Console. Maurice is a mechanical engineer in the Accelerator Division Mechanical Support Department. #MobileMonday

Please capture my good side!

Wilson Hall rises above the A0 service building as the sun rises.

Late on a Sunday evening, while the Oscars are being broadcast, no one can be seen in Wilson Hall.

Matt Zhang UIUC and Dylan Frizzell University of Oklahoma enjoy taking data for Atlas Pixel group at Fermilab Test Beam Facility FTBF using the MTest beam line.

The MINOS building on a grey Saturday.

From the back - Jennifer Nahn, Kim Mazur, Bonnie Alcorn, John Urish, Dave Dykstra, Hans Jostlein, program Director Janet Mackay-Galbraith, Sue Campbell, Georgia Schwender, Trish MacLachlan

Brian Nord, left, uses Adele to make a point in his presentation about cosmology to the high school students in Saturday Morning Physics.

Tamara Hawke is in the Micro bonding room in Lab D at Sidet preparing to micro bond a module for Duke University.

Fermilab's first director, Robert Wilson, and current director, Nigel Lockyer, depicted in another of Julie Vander Meulen's lunchtime chalkboard scenes.

Commissioning of the ventilation system at new building SBN-Near detector.

Scott Doerr has been retired from Fermilab for a couple of years now and enjoys bringing his dogs to the Fermilab Dog Training area.

New plant growth shows up as green stubble on the meson berm, one week after a prescribed burn. This shows the view after sunrise, looking west from MW9.

Road and Grounds are removing dead and dying pine trees across the lab in preparation for the 50th anniversary open house. Used for this effort is a front end loader with a grapple attachment for moving branches and logs, normally this machine would have a bucket for moving bulk materials such as dirt, stone or road salt. This removal effort has been ongoing over the last decade here at Fermilab.

I am very proud to work at Fermilab.

Looking north from the 15th floor of the high-rise to see what I can't see.

Panorama overlooking the Muon g-2 building and the Muon Campus

Sunset an a beautiful February evening.

Eduardo Mejia fills up with liquid nitrogen from chiller to cool down CCDs for the DESI experiment.

A serene moment on Wilson Hall's 15th floor south crossover, looking out at the Booster and the Muon Campus. #MobileMonday

Jim Wish, of the Particle Physics Division Scintillation Detector Development Group at Lab 6, works on the ProtoDUNE Light Bar Dipping Station for DUNE.

Utilities under Wilson Hall

These signs outside the MINOS Service Building show how scientific advancement really is an international effort.

During the art/science tour of "Neutrinos in a New Light" by artist-in-residence Ellen Sandor and art^n, this image was created by the virtual reality tour of MicroBooNE.

Obligatory sunset picture of the "Broken Symmetry" sculpture. In the springtime this is what I typically see on my evening commute as I walk home.

Fava of the Neutrino Division lectures on "Particle Detectors" at Saturday Morning Physics. Here she is showing the high school scientists what a phototube and a plastic scintillator look like.

Wilson Hall Stairs

The bright blue "overload" button from Linac's drift tube RF station #2. This is a feature exclusive to the drift tube Linac stations that lights up when an error has caused a component of this RF delivery system to malfunction. Beam is inhibited until an operator or expert is able to reset and restore power to the station, or the station resets itself, depending on the severity of the station's trip status.

A fish-eye view of Wilson Hall, the display of international flags, some geese and the moon.

Bison enjoy their lunch on this beautiful 58-degree February day.

Members of the Roads and Grounds crew start the back burn prior to setting Meson Hill on fire. Smoke from the fire drifted over Casey's Pond to the north of Meson Hill.

Lee Hammond performs a punchlist walkthrough of the ventilation system in the new Short-Baseline Neutrino Near Detector building.

Cons is one of the many people vital to keeping the accelerators running in top form. Once per year the Accelerator Division turns off its machines for a few months to implement upgrades, complete maintenance and bring new equipment on line. These jobs require coordination across multiple AD departments and laboratory divisions. At the end of the day, Cons is the person who ensures all the jobs are completed safely and on time. Additionally, he's the installation coordinator of the Muon Campus beamlines.

"I fell into a burnin' ring of fire. I went down, down, down, And the flames went higher. And it burns, burns, burns, The ring of fire, the ring of fire." —Johnny Cash

Thick chunky exposed concrete structural elements are characteristic of Brutalist architecture. This imposing fortress-like or bunker-like postmodernist architectural style was popular with public building projects from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Andrew Lathrop and Marco Bonati look over the MKIDS helium refrigerator located in the Lab C North cleanroom.

The sun sets behind the new transformer station.

Chipmunks making special measurements along the MI-8 line from Booster to the Main Injector.

Sheryl Westwood and Martin Valenzuela from the Roads and Grounds Department inspect the pruning recently done to the hedges at SiDet.

Trees reflect in the Proton Pagoda.

Prescribed burns are a vital part of land management at Fermilab. Wednesday's land management units scheduled to have a prescribed burn were the Main Injector Stockpile, Prairie 24 and the Wetland Mitigation. These burns may be interesting, but remember to always keep a safe distance from the burn area and the professionals managing the burn.

This is the view looking straight up the 330-foot 100-meter MINOS shaft. Underground at MINOS one can find the NOvA and MINERvA near detectors. MINOS is an acronym for Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search.

These guys regularly exercise in the Fermilab gym. They joke around and make things fun but work hard when moving iron. From left: Sathapat Sukkert, Stanley Kramer, Al Elste, Jim Nichols

Lovin' the dessert at The Frontier Pub!!

Annual chili cook-off at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility (FTBF). People at the feast include members of the sPHENIX group T1044, including Balazs Ujvari, Ron Belmont, Kurt Hill, Craig Woody, John Haggerty and Jin Huang. Past and present staff of FTBF include Erik Ramberg, Aria Soha, "JJ" Schmidt, Mandy Rominsky, Todd Nebel, Ewa Skup, Jerry Zimmerman. and Ray Safarik; Particle Physics and Accelerator Divisions support including Steve Huey, Adam Watts, Mike Backfish and Wanda Newby. Chili pots by Nebel, Skup, Huey, and Haggerty.

Sunset at the Meson Lab after a day at the Test Beam

Members of the Fermilab Roads and Grounds group conduct a prairie burn inside the Tevatron Ring. Over the course of two days the most of the Ring's interior was systematically burned. Burning prairie serves to fend off invasive species of plants while perpetuating the growth cycle of native prairie flora. The portion of the ring being burned here is a restored oak savanna. Oak savannas are among the rarest plant communities on earth and regular prairie burning helps to keep them vital.

Amanda Early, Katie Yurkewicz, Andrea Heeg and Valerie Higgins in a 50th Anniversary Coordination Committee meeting looking at the DIFF website

Fermi prairie burns will encourage new growth of native species.

Fermilab Chief Engineer Chris Mossey makes opening comments to lab engineers at the annual Engineers Retreat in the CDF Big Room.

Alex Walsh, undergrad working with CMS, tests noise on detector with different temperatures in the Detector Test Area at Lab C-D, Sidet.

Smoke obscures the sun from a mid-February prairie burn.

Smoke from the prairie burn in the Robert Betz Prairie

Mobile Monday - Wilson Hall is obscured by smoke from the prairie burn in the Main Ring.

A new flag has been added to those hanging in the Wilson Hall atrium.

#MobileMonday - I drove by this little stream of water which led my eye to the Proton Pagoda and that huge tree.

The Fermilab Roads and Grounds crew performs prescribed burns in prairies, woodlands and wetlands across site. This is a required land management tool to keep habitat biodiversity healthy. Here, a drip torch waits to be used.

This shows a controlled prairie burn east of Feldott Road.

Site 38 Pond, Windmill and Rope Building

Taking a break for the weekend. Around 8:00 in the morning, there was no one around except me.

Elena Gramellini explains the virtual reality of the MicroBooNE particle detector.

Hawk on a lamppost near Wilson Hall

The ghosts of Tevatron past

They didn't look both ways before they crossed, but they did obey the speed limit.

Long-forgotten gas storage tank behind one of the service buildings down the proton beamline along C-Road East.

Micky, as he introduced himself all day, has had an interest in particle physics since childhood. In fact, he filmed part of the construction of the Main Ring back in 1970 and exchanged that film for this tour. Left to right: Ting Li, Douglas Tucker, Sahar Allam in front, Harry Ferguson in back, Micky Dolenz, Tom Kobilarcik, Paul Derwent and Steve Hahn.

Young scientists are eager to start work in the newly inaugurated Materials Science Lab in Technical Division.

A full moon rises over the northeast portion of Fermilab, West Chicago and Wheaton. The moon was rising in the midst of a penumbral lunar eclipse and through a veil of high clouds. This is a composite of nine images taken with a 200mm lens on a 35mm digital body; the exposures were captured at an interval of 2.5 minutes.

Central Utility Building lights at night across the Booster pond.

The Fermilab Photography Club took a lunchtime photo-walk through the Tevatron tunnel on Thursday. I snapped this picture looking toward the DZero detector hall with my iPhone prior to exiting.

You remember that old song, "Stairway to..."? Now I remember, "A Stairway to the Pagoda ..."

Fermilab logomark in stainless steel

The beam switch sum box receives signals from various components of the accelerator complex in order to permit beam. However, even if all permits are made up, beam will not accelerate to destinations beyond the Linac without the HEP High Energy Physics enable key.

The tree line leading to the high rise silhouetted against the pre-dawn light.

Wilson Hall at sunset

A muskrat swims through the partially frozen pond near the F1 service building.

A set of BNC connectors and cables for carrying analog readbacks from the modulator belonging to Booster's RF station #15.

Workers on the 12th floor burns the five o'clock oil.

Main Control Room's relatively newly acquired chairs are moved from the carpet to the linoleum floors in order for the cleaning crew to vacuum — one of the highlights of an operator's evening shift rotation.

Feeling quiet and mysterious to me.

Irwin Gaines contemplates something during a break in the All-Scientists Retreat in the CDF Big Room.

The low-conductivity water headers have just been installed in the Mu2e M4 beamline enclosure. Eventually, magnets, stands, vacuum, cables and other components will be installed.

Muon g-2, pronounced "g minus 2," is one of two experiments under development at Fermilab's Muon Campus. The plan is to begin commissioning the beamlines to Muon g-2 later this spring

Colorful cables neatly connect some of the Feynman Computing Center computing that serves Fermilab.

A stack of used titanium ion pump anode cells near the Preaccelerator observation window in Linac Upper Gallery. Cathode plates and magnets are paired with a set of anode cells, and, with the help of high voltage, air particles present in a volume of beam pipe are ionized. These air particles are captured in the titanium, lowering the pressure and increasing the quality of vacuum.

George, a safety mascot, is the officemate of an engineer in the Accelerator Division.

The dry weeds in the prairie along Pine Street stand out in front of Wilson Hall.

Patrons crowd around two members of the group The Three Celli.

Gallery Chamber Series - The Three Celli - a concert in the Art Gallery.

Subliminal message for lunch.

While the people are away the animals come out to play. Notice the hawk in the tree watching the sunrise?

Approximately 100 children in 1st-3rd grade came to Fermilab to show off their robotic creations. The students all did research on a topic related to this year's theme, "Creature Craze," and built a project to illustrate what they learned.

Saturday Morning Physics continues in One West every Saturday. An attentive and smart group of high school students listens.

Anderson Barn around sunrise

The monthly meeting of Fermilab's Ecological Land Management Committee, led by Ryan Campbell, in Wilson Hall room One East. The ELM Committee recommends "management practices based on sound ecological principles that enhance the natural resources of the laboratory."

This picture shows the Muon Campus Delivery Ring, bottom right, and the M4 extraction beamline, top right. The Delivery Ring will serve the lab's two flagship muon experiments - Muon g-2 (read "'G' minus two") and Mu2e (read "mu to e"). Like many things here at Fermilab, the Delivery Ring is a repurposed machine. It originally served as part of Fermilab's Antiproton Source, which made antiprotons for the Tevatron collider experiments. The Muon Campus is currently under construction, with mechanical technicians installing magnets, beam pipe, and making water connections. Instrumentation technicians are installing beam diagnostics. Electronics technicians are connecting magnets to power supplies in the service buildings above. The plan is to commission beam to the Muon Campus later this spring, so there is much to do!

This resistor was very recently removed from its home in the modulator cabinet for Main Injector's RF station #7. It is one of three that failed on the previous night's shift, bringing the high energy physics program to a momentary halt. Carbon ash is all that is left of the other two.

The sun sets over Wilson Hall

On the way home, I look back at Wilson Hall.

Sunset through the trees along B Road

SiDet is a facility for building scientific detectors at Fermilab. The building topped by a geodesic dome originally served as the assembly building for the 15-foot hydrogen bubble chamber.