15-Ton Electromagnet Moving From New York To Illinois For Subatomic Particle Study [Video]

In an ambitious, cost-saving move, scientists are gearing up to move a 15-ton electromagnet from its current home in Long Island to the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The entire move is expected to take around five weeks, and should be completed by July.

The 50-foot-wide electromagnet will cost $3 million to move over land by truck and sea by barge, far less than the $30 million it would cost to build the magnet from scratch. The scientists have devised a 3,200-mile path that involves taking the magnet down the east coast, around the tip of Florida, and up the Mississippi river to Illinois. The magnet will then be utilized for the Muon g-2 project, which will focus on muons, subatomic particles that exist for only 2.2 millionths of a second.

"It costs about 10 times less to move the magnet from Brookhaven to Illinois than it would to build a new one," said Lee Roberts from Boston University, spokesperson for the Muon g-2 experiment. "So that's what we're going to do. It's an enormous effort from all sides, but it will be worth it."

The electromagnet in question was the world's largest when it was first constructed for the Brookhaven National Laboratory located in eastern Long Island back in the 1990s. While it no longer holds that title, it is still an incredibly delicate and intricate piece of machinery. The electromagnet itself cannot be disassembled, and any movements causing a stress of greater than one-eighth of an inch could result in irreversible damage.

The scientists involved with the magnet are confident that studying muons is worth the entire ordeal, and are hoping the subatomic particles can shed more light on the mysterious world of ephemeral subatomic particles.

"The transport of the ring from Brookhaven to Fermilab is a great example of the cooperation that exists between national laboratories," said James Siegrist, associate director of science for high-energy physics with the U.S. Department of Energy. "The Muon g-2 experiment is an important component of the future of particle physics in the United States."