Yale Bulletin
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SPECIALISSUE2002-2003|VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1





Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory:

Probing the Power of Particles

Directed by physics professor Richard Casten, Yale's Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory houses the world's most powerful stand-alone Tandem Van de Graaf accelerator, a type of device that speeds up charged particles.

The accelerator -- which is located in a facility shielded by 10-foot-thick walls of earth -- is used in two of the three research programs at the laboratory: the nuclear structure program, which studies how protons and neutrons interact with each other inside the nucleus and the shapes and motions that nuclei can exhibit; and the nuclear astrophysics program, which looks at how collisions in nuclei in stars are able to generate energy, heat and light.

The third program of study at the lab is research with relativistic heavy ions. This program uses RHIC, the accelerator at Brookhaven National Lab, and looks at collisions of nuclei together at very high energies. The goal of this research is to study the structure of protons and neutrons and the interactions that make up matter at the most microscopic level.


Contents

Building for State-of-the-Art Research

Inspiring Future Science Leaders

Harnessing the Power of the Genome

Encouraging Women in the Sciences

Forging International Collaborations

Yale Dean Honored With Blue Planet Prize

Engineering the World of Tomorrow

Yale Engineer Receives National Medal of Technology

Promoting the Greening of 'The Blue'

Peabody Museum of Natural History:
Preserving the Past, Educating Future Generations

Bringing Yale Discoveries to The Public

Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory: Probing the Power of Particles

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