19 - Building Fermilab: A User's Paradise

Summary

Building Fermilab was a many-faceted endeavor; it had scientific, technical, aesthetic, social, architectural, political, conservationist, and humanistic aspects, all of which were interrelated. Because the emphasis of this Symposium is on the history of science, I intend to highlight the scientific and technical aspects of the design and construction of the experimental facilities, but these other considerations were also important in building the experimental areas (Fig. 19.1). Neither the experiments made at the laboratory, nor improvements such as the Tevatron, made under the aegis of succeeding Directors, will be discussed here.

Before becoming director of Fermilab in 1967, I had been a trustee of URA since its formation in 1965. This experience had sensitized me to the growing number of particle physicists throughout the country who, with no accelerator at their home universities, had become dependent on sharing the use of larger accelerators constructed at national laboratories. It was they who started the revolt against the benevolent rule typified by the University of California's Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley and (on a smaller scale) by my own institution, Cornell University. In 1963 that arch-user Leon Lederman expressed the community's sentiments of wanting the next lab to be accessible by right for all users, that they would have a strong voice in decisions on what was built and how facilities were used, and that it would be a place where they would be “at home and loved.”