Plasma-based accelerators have demonstrated their ability to accelerate electrons at very high gradients (>100GeV/m). They have a number of niche applications. The AWAKE...
Feb12
The Transformation of SLAC: a historical/sociological exposé and analysis
Olaf Hallonsten, Lund University
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SLAC was founded in the midst of the Cold War era particle physics heyday, and for a long time, it competed for world leadership in the field, through the construction and operation of cutting-edge accelerators. But the world changed around the laboratory: The Cold War ended, the status of particle physics as a crown jewel science was questioned, and other big investments took precedent in federal science budgets. This development, which forms a backdrop to the story of SLAC’s transformation, cohered with a micro-level advance of laboratory techniques that utilized synchrotron radiation (and eventually free electron laser) from the SLAC machines for a wide range of applications in the natural sciences. Today, SLAC is foremost a photon science lab, and a global leader in the area.
In this talk, I will report on a historical and sociological study undertaken in 2011-2014 and whose results are now published, on the transformation of SLAC over fifty years. Combining micro- and meso-level analysis of the history of SLAC with macro-level analysis of the historical and political context and how it changed, the project has drawn several interesting conclusions about the lab’s transformation, why and how it occurred, what it meant, and how decision-makers, practitioners, and especially historians and sociologists of science can learn from it. The talk is aimed for the generally interested audience and will present the key findings and the key analyses of the project.
About Olaf Hallonsten
Dr. Olof Hallonsten is a historian and sociologist of science at Lund University, Sweden. His work includes studies of the politics, organization and governance of science in historical perspective, and with special emphasis on Big Science and how it changed in the late-20th and early 21st centuries. Hallonsten is the author of several journal articles about SLAC and counterparts in other countries, and the book Big Science Transformed: Science, politics, and organization in Europe and the United States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). For more information and publications, see www.olofhallonsten.com
Audience: Public
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