Historical Content Note: The following material is reprinted from publications from throughout Fermilab's history. It should be read in its original historical context.

NAL Welcomes XVI High Energy Physics Conference

NAL welcomed the more than 800 visitors who came this week to participate in the last three days of this conference. It is hoped that their tours of the NAL facilities gave glimpses of the promise for the future that will come from the world's highest energy accelerator. "You are seeing the fulfillment of a dream we have all had for some time," NAL Director Robert Rathbun Wilson noted in his welcoming address last Monday.

"But we need a fairy godmother," he told his colleagues, "and I urge you to touch us and bring us to life."

Visitors to the NAL site found that the status of projects under construction included the Central Laboratory Building, about 60% complete. Thirteen of the sixteen stories had been poured and completion of the building was expected in June, 1973. The adjoining auditorium was finished in November of this year.

In the experimental areas, the Neutrino Laboratory was 90% complete. The Meson Laboratory main building was finished in November, 1972. Two experimental pits of the Proton Laboratory were approaching completion.

Donald R. Getz, Assistant Director at NAL, explained to employees, "We are now at a point where we can see the end of the mud and inconvenience we have lived with for four years. The attractive and useful site and buildings we've planned are nearing completion, and we will go into a more comfortable operational phase."

It was a busy, varied week for the physicists attending the XVI International Conference on High Energy Physics at the University of Chicago and NAL. Photographers caught the physicists and their families, guests and hosts, in some of their leisure moments.

More on the XVI High Energy Physics Conference

An aerial view of Central Laboratory area and the experimental lines in August, 1972
Photo by Tony Frelo, NAL (1 of 4)
E.L. Goldwasser talking to Robert Sachs and Richard J. Daley, Mayor of the City of Chicago (2 of 4)
Willibald Jentschke, Director-General of CERN, talking with Carolyn Sachs (3 of 4)
Robert Wilson talking to two guests (4 of 4)