The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California, will change its name. That’s because the Department of Energy (DOE) wants to trademark the names of its 17 national labs, and Stanford University won’t let DOE claim its name. The impasse is “an example of DOE idiocy,” says Nobelist and former SLAC Director Burton Richter, because the university would protect the name anyway. But DOE has been pushing to trademark lab names for more than a decade, spurred in part by a new law allowing trademark suits against the government, a risk DOE says it is trying to minimize.
Oy vey!
Zz.
While removing Stanford from the name is part of the issue. There is talk here (at SLAC that is) that linear accelerator should no longer be part of the name either, since SLAC is pretty much a light source lab nowadays.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I mean, even with the LCLS, there is still a "linear accelerator" there. After all, that's how the FEL works. It just isn't a particle collider anymore.
ReplyDeleteZz.