14 DAY TRIAL // A huge Muon g-2 electromagnet weighing 17-ton, and being 52-foot wide was transported in Long Island and shipped to Illinois after being stored for ten years in Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. After finishing the shipment, the massive object was cooled to absolute zero temperatures and became ready to start solving physics mysteries.
Now, at Fermilab in Illinois the device must start working again after reaching minus 450 Fahrenheit. These extremely low temperatures were apparently needed to slow particles down enough so that they can be studied. It seems you need to do this if this huge magnet will use a powerful particle beam that's now under construction and will join the magnet in studying these mysterious subatomic particles called muons.
The way the scientists study the muons is by trapping the beam produced muons in a magnetic field so they can see if there are any subatomic forces that affect the muon movement. These Muons are basically heavy cousins of the electrons and “wobble” when placed in a magnetic field, and based on what we know about the universe, scientists have predicted the ultra-precise value of that wobble.
This way scientists can understand how these forces work and what exactly are they. Obviously, the more we learn about these particles, the more we understand about the nature of the universe. The electromagnet was specifically designed for muon experiments like this one. To build a new one at Fermilab would have cost about $30 million, but transporting the ring from New York cost only $3 million.
