Brookhaven, New York

New York

One of the first video games ever made was designed at a nuclear research lab on Long Island.

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One of the first video games was built at a nuclear physics lab here. Brookhaven National Laboratory sits on ground that used to be an Army camp called Camp Upton, a training site in both world wars. Thousands of soldiers passed through it, among them the composer Irving Berlin. In 1946 the Army handed the land over, and the laboratory started work the following year. What came out of it is a strange list. Researchers there patented Maglev. They designed one of the first video games. They detected the first solar neutrinos. They engineered bacteria that eat pollutants. They created the first PET scan. The lab still runs the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the National Synchrotron Light Source. A place where recruits once drilled with rifles now smashes atomic nuclei together.

This is the first of 4 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
Brookhaven researchers have since made such diverse contributions as patenting Maglev, designing one of the first video games, detecting the first solar neutrinos, designing pollutant-eating bacteria, creating the first PET scan, and various contributions to particle physics.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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