Science: Hilac

The world's biggest atom-smashers seldom smash atoms any more—except incidentally. Such mighty machines as the Berkeley Bevatron and the Brookhaven Cosmotron are used chiefly to explore the particles of which atoms are built. Last week the University of California at Berkeley put into operation a special machine for attacking atoms from a new angle. Its cost: $1,700,000.

Called Hilac (heavy ion linear accelerator), the Berkeley machine is 112 ft. long and about 10 ft. in diameter. Instead of hurling protons, deuterons and other light bits of atomic chaff, it uses as its projectiles such comparatively heavy elements as nitrogen (atomic weight 14) and neon (atomic weight 20), which have effects that are different from those of smaller projectiles.

Berkeley's Hilac will be used chiefly for transmuting elements, especially for attempting to create new elements heavier than mendelevium (element 101). Another use: simulating the damage that may be done by heavy cosmic-ray particles to the living cells of space travelers above the sheltering atmosphere.