Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), formerly the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory and usually shortened to Berkeley Lab or LBL, is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory in Berkeley, California conducting unclassified scientific research. It is managed and owned by the University of California.

History

The lab was founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence as a site for centering physics research around his new instrument, the cyclotron (a type of particle accelerator for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics). Throughout the 1930s, Lawrence pushed to create larger and larger machines for physics research, courting private philanthropists for funding, often with the promise of developing new forms of chemotherapy using radioisotopes produced by the cyclotrons. After the laboratory was scooped on a number of fundamental discoveries that they felt they ought to have made, the "cyclotroneers" began to collaborate more closely with the theoretical physicists in the Berkeley Department of Physics, led by Robert Oppenheimer. The lab moved to its site on the hill above campus in 1940 as its machines became too big, and potentially too dangerous, to house on the university grounds.

Related Topics:
1931 - Ernest Orlando Lawrence - Cyclotron - Particle accelerator - Nobel Prize in Physics - Philanthropists - Chemotherapy - Radioisotopes - Theoretical physicists - Robert Oppenheimer - 1940

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Lawrence courted government as his sponsor in the early years of the Manhattan Project, the American effort to produce the first atomic bomb during World War II, and along with the MIT Radiation Laboratory (which helped to develop radar), ushered in the era of "Big Science". Using the newly created 184-inch cyclotron as a mass spectrometer, Lawrence and his colleagues developed the principle behind the electromagnetic enrichment of uranium, which was put to use in the calutrons (named after the university) at the massive Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and contributed some of the precious fissile material used for the "Little Boy" bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Related Topics:
Manhattan Project - Atomic bomb - World War II - MIT Radiation Laboratory - Radar - Big Science - Mass spectrometer - Electromagnetic enrichment - Uranium - Calutron - Y-12 - Oak Ridge, Tennessee - Little Boy - Hiroshima - Japan

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After the war, Lawrence sought to maintain strong government and military ties at his lab, which became incoporated into the new system of Atomic Energy Commission (now Department of Energy) National Laboratories, but in the early 1950s set out that the lab's purpose would be primarily non-classified research, with classified weapon research taking place at Los Alamos National Laboratory (established during the war) and the new Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, established by Lawrence and Edward Teller from what was originally a splinter from the original Radiation Laboratory. Some weapons-related and collaborative research continued at LBL until the 1970s, however.

Related Topics:
Atomic Energy Commission - Los Alamos National Laboratory - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - Edward Teller

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From the 1950s through the present, the laboratory has maintained its status has a major international center for physics research, and has also diversified its research program into almost every realm of scientific investigation. Along with its historical specialty of accelerator research and nuclear physics, the laboratory currently maintains divisions which investigate astrophysics, nuclear fusion, earth sciences, genomics, health physics, computer science, materials science, and environmental science, among other areas. The laboratory is also the site of the a number of National User Facilities, including the Advanced Light Source, National Center for Electron Microscopy, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, and the Energy Sciences Network.

Related Topics:
Astrophysics - Nuclear fusion - Earth sciences - Genomics - Health physics - Computer science - Materials science - Environmental science - Advanced Light Source - National Center for Electron Microscopy - National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center - Energy Sciences Network

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