SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

USA / California / West Menlo Park / Sand Hill Road, 2575
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slac.stanford.edu/
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center This is the longest building in the world (length around 2 miles).
Tel.: (650) 854-0683
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAC_National_Accelerator_Laboratory
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   37°24'58"N   122°12'59"W

Comments

  • Does fundamental and ground breaking research into particle and astrophysics, as well as synchotron light applications to medicine, engineering, and many other areas of human life. Also, site of the *first* website in the Western Hemisphere in the early 1990's (CERN in Switzerland was the first website in the world).
  • The distinctive "mile long building". You can't miss it driving on the freeway.
  • I recall as a kid in the 1960's just being fascinated with this place. One expert of the site told me during a Q&A session at my middle school, that the mile long building was built very close to the San Andreas fault. Because of that, the building was designed and built so that [supposedly] during an earthquake, the whole mile long structure will move in unison, so that it will keep the straight alignment of the tube and beam intact. That's amazing!!
  • Portola's comment above is quite true -- the misalignment of the entire Linac structure after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake was only a few inches (roughly), and it took just a couple of days of work to get the entire beampipe perfectly aligned again!
This article was last modified 7 months ago