txchnologist: by Txchnologist staff This could be a talented illustrator’s take on a warp-drive component in a sci-fi graphic novel. Actually, it’s a photograph from 1983 showing a key part inside a linear particle accelerator, which is designed to increase the velocity of ions for physics research and other purposes. This device pictured above, called a radio-frequency quadrupole, is a magnetic passageway that focuses and accelerates protons for injection into Brookhaven National Lab’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. The lab’s accelerator, operating since 1960, is still working and has helped researchers using it win three Nobel Prizes. See a larger version of the image on Brookhaven’s Flickr. Science

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