The Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is pictured above. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

The American Physical Society on Monday honored the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as an APS Historic Physics Site.

It’s the first designated APS Historic Physics Site in Tennessee. The APS is one of the world’s top professional societies for scientists.

APS President-elect Laura Greene presented a plaque marking the historical designation of the now-decommissioned physics research facility to kick off the Nuclear Structure 2016 conference and Neutrinos in Nuclear Physics workshop being held this week in Knoxville. ORNL Deputy for Science and Technology Thomas Zacharia accepted the plaque for ORNL.

ORNL is a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory.

“In naming the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility as a Historic Physics Site, the American Physical Society took into consideration the half century of nuclear and atomic physics research performed there, as well as the scores of scientists who performed experiments with its unique capabilities,” Greene said. “The Holifield Facility has indeed been an important contributor to the physical sciences history.” [Read more…]