ACTIONS
1997INTER ACTIONS
1997
Saxonburg Cyclotron 50th Reunion
Cyclotron coils heading toward Saxonburg
In 1946, Fred Seitz, then head of the physics department at Carnegie Tech, brought Ed Creutz (who later succeeded Seitz as department head), Jack Fox (who succeeded Creutz as department head), Roger Sutton (who succeeded Creutz as director of the Saxonburg Nuclear Research Center) and Bert Corben to Carnegie Tech to establish an important nuclear physics research program. Through a series of initiatives, a leading-edge 450 MeV proton synchrocyclotron was built at the Nuclear Research Center near Saxonburg in southern Butler County. The research program developed at Saxonburg flourished up to the mid-1970s when the then-obsolete accelerator was dismantled. The legacy of that work remains, in the form of vigorous, medium and high energy nuclear and particle physics research programs carried on by Carnegie Mellon groups at various national and international accelerator laboratories.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary year of Seitz's initiative, a weekend-long "Saxonburg reunion" was held at Carnegie Mellon last fall, attended by more than 130 ex-Saxonburg students, staff and faculty. The reunion was organized by a committee comprising Gale Pewitt at Fermilab; Tom Fields, Malcolm Derrick and Yanglai Cho at Argonne; and Joe Rudman, Joe Sadecky and John Fetkovich (chair) at Carnegie Mellon.
Reunion photo: Fred Seitz, Dave Rose and Martyn Foss
The festivities opened with a physics department open house on Friday. Saturday featured a series of talks relating to work done at the accelerator, and a reception and dinner. After dinner, talks by Fred Seitz and Ed Creutz (see "Not in My Football Field") told interesting stories about the early days of the accelerator.
On Sunday, participants were treated to a tour of the II-VI Corporation, which now occupies the old Nuclear Research Center site at Saxonburg. The tour was very generously personally hosted by Carl Johnson, chairman and CEO of the corporation, along with several employees. II-VI specializes in production of infra-red optical and laser components. Visitors were pleased to note that the original laboratory building remains, more or less intact, as does the old dormitory/cafeteria/lounge building, which is now used for storage. The most obvious changes are that the accelerator and attendant shielding are gone, along with the farmhouse and quonset huts; the high-bay area has been converted to three levels of office and laboratory space; and there has been considerable new construction, so that the original lab building is now but a fraction of the total facility.
The festivities were capped by a picnic lunch held in the Saxonburg Museum located in Roebling Park in Saxonburg, and hosted by Reldon Cooper, mayor of Saxonburg.
