Electromagnet makes slow progress to new home in Illinois
Glen Ellyn IL- It skipped tolls. It had a twitter hashtag and a GPS tracker. It even posed for photos with groupies.
The 50-foot-wide, 15-ton electromagnet attracted a sensation wherever it went during its slow, delicate 3,200 mile journey from New York to suburban Chicago. The land-and-sea trip culminated when scientists threw a rock star's welcome for the mysterious, shrink-wrapped cargo on Friday as it arrived at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to help study blazing-fast particles.
"Oh, look, they found a flying saucer!" retired software developer Chris Otis said with a laugh. "I have no idea. Turn it on and the Martians will have a home on it."
snip
Fermilab officials, however, plan to use the magnet in a physics experiment called Muon-2 that will study subatomic particles in their lab in Batavia, outside Chicago. The experiment will study the properties of muons, subatomic particles that live only 2.2 millionths of a second.
http://www.journalstandard.com/news/x273441238/Electromagnet-makes-slow-progress-to-new-home-in-Batavia
