Atomic Trash: Cold War & Global Histories of Re-commissioned Nuclear Physics Laboratories

The third ever cyclotron (atom smasher) to be built in the USA (Rochester, 1938) was decommissioned and transferred to India (Chandigarh, 1965-67) where it functions to date with the bulk of its original parts. There are three such reborn equipment and refurbished laboratories that I am aware of: Rice University, Texas (1961) to Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City (1980s); (ii) Rice University, Texas (1961) to Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb (1980s); (iii) parts from The Berliner Elektronenspeicherring-Gesellschaft für Synchrotronstrahlung (BESSY) in Berlin to the SESAME Project in Jordan (1990s). These laboratory systems - often running into hundreds of square meters - were transferred from their original setting and reassembled in their host locations in a different country with new buildings and, often, a new research agenda. Given that the equipment was meant for research in nuclear physics and it went to developing countries during the Cold War – there is a global story that emerges from looking at this "atomic trash". This is equally, I argue, a story of re-imagination and recreation of the laboratory space, its design and even more so, of its purpose.