Big Science Comes Rolling Through Your Town

Ordinarily, if you want an up-close look at the mind-blowing science happening at Fermilab, you have to come and see it. But this summer, we’re going to be rolling one of our new experiments right through the Fox Valley.

You may have read about this. As part of an experiment we call Muon g-2 (pronounced gee-minus-two), we’re transporting a gigantic electromagnet from New York to Illinois. It’s basically a big metal ring, 50 feet in diameter. We have to bring it here in one piece, and as flat as we can, so the superconducting coils inside aren’t damaged. (It actually costs 10 times less to move the ring than it would to build a new one.)

As you can imagine, that makes it challenging. We’re going to be loading the ring onto a barge and bringing it south around the tip of Florida, then north up the Mississippi River. The ring should leave Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York in mid-June, and arrive at the Ozinga Concrete port in Lemont in late July or early August.

And then we’ll be loading it onto a specially prepared truck and driving it to the lab. We’ll be using Lemont Road and 87th Street to bring it through Lemont and Woodridge on the way to I-355. Then we’ll take I-355 north to I-88, and take I-88 west to Route 59, where we will come off the highway. We’ll then take Ferry Road west to Eola Road, turn right and drive straight up into the Fermilab site.

The ring is huge – it’s going to clear the open road tolling arches on the highway by a few inches on either side – and the truck will be accompanied by state police and a team of spotters. It’s going to be a very cool thing to see, but it will necessitate closing off portions of the road as the caravan moves through.

The ring is also absolutely safe – it’s not a magnet until we power it up, and it’s not radioactive or otherwise harmful. The company we’ve hired, Emmert International, specializes in moving large objects like this, and working with local and state agencies to make sure it all goes smoothly. And we’re more than happy to provide any information or answer any questions about it.

There are two things I want to get across. First, and most important, is the fact that we’re doing everything we can to make sure that this move doesn’t disrupt your lives. We’ll be moving it overnight, between 11 p.m. and 4 or 5 a.m., and we’ll be using rolling roadblocks, opening up the roads as quickly as we can. We’re hoping to have a GPS-enabled map that will show you exactly where the ring is at any given time, and we’re working with state police, IDOT and the Tollway Authority to make sure road closings and detours are handled properly.

The other thing I want to get across is that this is incredibly cool stuff. It’s big science, rolling right through your town. The truck this ring will be on is a marvel of modern engineering, and the coordinated effort it’s taking to pull this off is just mindboggling. And then there’s the ring itself, an enormous reminder of the wonders of our universe. We’re going to use this to crack open a mystery, to see what cannot be seen. That’s awesome.

It’s also symbolic of the next phase of Fermilab’s future. The Muon g-2 experiment is one of many we’re building right now, charting the course for the next several decades. We do big science here, and we’re going to keep on doing it. It’s going to be a pretty fantastic trip, and you’re welcome to come along.

You can follow the Muon g-2 experiment at muon-g-2.fnal.gov. Next week, I’ll tell you more about another big project we’re working on.

Andre Salles is the media and community relations specialist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He can be reached at asalles@fnal.gov or 630-840-6733.