What do numbers have to say about SLAC?
-
SLAC began in
1962 with
200
employees.
-
Nearly
1,700 people now work on
staff plus
300 postdoctoral
researchers and graduate students.
-
3,400 scientists from
around the world use our cutting-edge facilities each year.
-
1,000-plus
scientific papers are
published each year based on research at SLAC
-
6 scientists have been
awarded Nobel prizes for research at SLAC that discovered
2
fundamental particles, proved
protons are made of quarks and showed how DNA directs
protein manufacturing in cells.
-
Our employees hail from
50
countries.
-
150 buildings sit on our
426-acre site on the
Stanford campus.
-
3,073.72 meters (1.9 miles) long, our linear
accelerator is one of the longest buildings on Earth.
-
Electrons zip down that linear accelerator at
>669,600,000
mph –
99.9999999
percent of the speed of
light.
-
275 universities make use
of our resources, and
55
companies use our X-ray
facilities for research aimed at developing medicines and
other products.
-
SLAC works with Stanford in
4
research centers: Kavli
Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford
Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, Stanford PULSE
Institute and SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and
Catalysis.
-
Our X-ray laser zaps samples with pulses a few
millionths
of a billionth of a
second long.
-
The lab has had 3
names:
- Project M (1956-1960)
- Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1960-2008)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2008–present)
-
3.2-billion -pixel camera we’re designing for the world’s deepest sky survey will
shoot the equivalent of
800,000 8 -megapixel digital camera images per night.
-
3.6-million -degree-F matter created in our labs mimics extreme conditions in the
hearts of stars and planets.
-
SLAC managed construction of the main instrument for a space telescope
that’s discovered more than
100
pulsars since its launch in
2008 .
-
The 1st
website in North America was
at SLAC, designed to help physicists share their research
results.
-
SLAC’s
1st scientific discovery was a
fossil: Paleoparadoxia, found in
1964 during excavation for
the linear accelerator. It lived
14 million
years ago and resembled a
hippopotamus.
-
In
1975, the Homebrew Computer
Club began meeting in the SLAC auditorium. This Silicon
Valley grassroots group helped spark the personal computing
revolution.
-
We’re 50 years old, and counting!