History
Most of the world's neutron sources were built decades ago, and although the uses and demand for neutrons have increased throughout the years, few new sources have been built. To fill that need for a new, improved neutron source, the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences funded the construction of SNS, which would provide the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development.
The construction of SNS was a partnership of six DOE national laboratories: Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Jefferson. This collaboration was one of the largest of its kind in U.S. scientific history and was used to bring together the best minds and experience from many different fields.
After more than five years of construction and a cost of $1.4 billion, SNS was completed in April 2006. The first three instruments began commissioning and were available to the scientific community in August 2007. As of 2011, a total of 15 instruments have been completed, and SNS is hosting about 700 researchers per year.
Read more about this topic: Spallation Neutron Source
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)