Brookhaven National Laboratory company history timeline

1947

In 1947, a consortium of nine northeastern universities established a nuclear science research center on a slip of land on Long Island, New York.

Since Brookhaven National Laboratory opened its doors in 1947, countless innovations and inventions by staff and visiting scientists have contributed to research in the fields of physics, chemistry, energy, technology, biology, medicine and more.

Founded on the former site of the United States Army’s Camp Upton in New York in 1947, the Energy Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory was originally created out of a post-war desire to explore the peaceful applications of atomic energy.

In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor.

1948

The founding of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1948.

1952

In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron.

1956

Tritiated thymidine: In 1956, Brookhaven researchers discovered a new way to study DNA by attaching the radioisotope tritium to thymidine, one of the building blocks of DNA. Tritiated thymidine also proved useful in studies of cell migration and growth throughout the body.

1957

Parity Violation: In 1957, T. D. Lee, of Columbia University, and C. N. Yang, then of Brookhaven, interpreted results of particle decay experiments at Brookhaven's Cosmotron particle accelerator.

1958

An ingenious experiment in 1958 by M. Goldhaber, L. Grodzins, and A. W. Sunyar of the BNL staff established that the helicity of the neutrino emitted in electron capture is negative (that is, the neutrino is "left-handed"). BNL researchers also discovered more than one species of neutrino.

Did you know: In 1958 a Brookhaven scientist developed “Tennis for Two,” an electronic tennis game that is unquestionably a forerunner of the modern video game.

In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world's first video games, Tennis for Two.

1960

1960 – presentAlternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) was built on the innovative concept of the alternating gradient.

Brookhaven Associate Director for High Energy and Nuclear Physics records, 1960-[ongoing].

1963

Three lectures on Niels Bohr and his times;$bPart III: the atomic nucleus, August 1963.

International Conference on Fundamental Aspects of Weak Interactions, held at Brookhaven National Laboratory, September 9-11, 1963.

1964

In 1964, working at the AGS, V. L. Fitch and J. W. Cronin of Princeton and colleagues unequivocally established a small violation of CP invariance in decays of the neutral K meson.

1968

In 1968, Brookhaven researchers Gordon Danby and James Powell patented Maglev, the principle of superfast magnetically-levitated transportation.

1970

In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

1976

Oral history interview with Norris Edwin Bradbury, 1976 February 11.

The J/psi particle, whose discovery won Samuel C. C. Ting the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics

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