The Advanced Neutron Source Knocks at the Door of Congress

In the wake of the cancellation of the $11 billion Superconducting Super Collider, another big‐ticket physics facility is seeking its fortunes with Congress. The supplicant is the Advanced Neutron Source, a $2.9 billion research reactor designed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to provide at least five times the neutron flux of any existing facility and support up to 1000 users per year, conducting experiments in material, biological, condensed‐matter and chemical physics. The 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics was just awarded for the type of studies that would be done at the ANS: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the prize to Bertram N. Brockhouse of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and Clifford Shull of MIT for “pioneering contributions to the development of neutron‐scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter.”