Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 4: Instrumente

GP 4.1: Hauptvortrag

Dienstag, 21. März 2017, 09:30–10:15, HSZ 105

The Atomic Gift — •Jahnavi Phalkey — King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom

The third ever cyclotron to be built in the USA (Rochester, 1938) was decommissioned and transferred to India (Chandigarh, 1965-67) where it functions to date with the bulk of its original parts. There are three such reborn equipment and refurbished laboratories that I am aware of: Rice University, Texas (1961) to Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City (1980s); (ii) Rice University, Texas (1961) to Ruder Bošković Institute, Zagreb (1980s); (iii) parts from The Berliner Elektronenspeicherring-Gesellschaft für Synchrotronstrahlung (BESSY) in Berlin to the SESAME Project in Jordan (1990s). These laboratory systems - often running into hundreds of square meters - were transferred from their original setting and reassembled in their host locations in a different country with new buildings and, often, a new research agenda. Given that the equipment was meant for research in nuclear physics and it went to developing countries during the Cold War, there is a global story that emerges from looking at this atomic gift. This is equally, I argue, a story of re-imagination and recreation of the laboratory space, its design and even more so, of its purpose in a curious way.