It's Nuke-U-Leer

Last Thursday I took a nice little Berkeley Hills ride up Euclid, past Cragmont Park and finally to Grizzly Peak Boulevard and the summit. The day was crisp, cool and wonderful--even the Golden Gate was free of fog in the late afternoon. While coming down the mountain I decided to buzz by the Berkeley Hall of Science and take in the vista one last time for the day, but I noticed something that demanded my attention even more. Right in the roundabout passenger drop-off loop at the museum sits the original electromagnet core of Ernest Lawrence's 37-inch cyclotron.

The importance and gravity of this device can not be overstated. Among its more critical discoveries are the production of the world's first synthetically created element, technetium, and the viable refinement process for uranium-235. The latter is the whopper to me: without this device the uranium refinement calutrons at Oak Ridge could not have been built and, along with them, neither would the atomic bomb. That rusting hunk of metal in the middle of that roundabout was a crucial cog in the research machinery that invented The Bomb. Wow.

It blew my mind.

It's strange to come face-to-face with such history, to be able to reach out and touch it. To some people that artifact is either awash in the blood of tens of thousands or a symbol of freedom and saved lives. You never know what you're going to find on a bike ride, for sure.

--Matt