Stanford Linear Accelerator

2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California; Tel. 650.926.3300

Cosmic rays are constantly slamming into the atmosphere, producing particles called muons that bombard you and me and everyone else on Earth pretty much all the time. Normally we don't notice, but a Cosmic Ray Detector in the Stanford Linear Accelerator Visitor's Center marks each passing muon with a light showing its general direction and a "beep!" SLAC, as it is called, was built in 1962 to shoot electrons and positrons along a two-mile linear electron accelerator to study the smallest building blocks of matter. Quarks were discovered here, and three Nobel Prize laureates made their discoveries at SLAC. Also at the center is the skeleton of a fearsome marine mammal from the Miocene Epoch discovered during the building's construction. A model of the Paleoparadoxia makes it look something like a seafaring hippopotamus with giant jaws and muscular front legs. Tours of SLAC are usually twice a week and reservations are required.

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