Farewell Fermilab Main Ring

8 October 1997  

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The end of an era has arrived at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. Crews have already begun to dismantle the famous Main Ring, which for several years was the world's most powerful accelerator. The machine accelerated protons to energies of 400 giga electronvolts (GeV) and more - a push equivalent to 400,000 million 1-volt batteries. The red and blue electromagnets seen here guided the particles on thousands of circuits round the 6 km ring. The machine, which started up in 1972, led most famously to the discovery of one of the heaviest of nature's basic building bricks, the bottom quark. In the 1980s, the Main Ring's role changed as it handed its protons on for further acceleration in the newer and more powerful Tevatron, whose yellow and red superconducting magnets nestled below the Main Ring. (The Tevatron later completed the set of quarks, with the discovery of the top quark). Now the Main Ring is to be replaced with a new machine - the Main Injector - which will accelerate more intense beams and provide much larger numbers of collisions.

Credit: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

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