Fermilab opened its doors to thousands on Saturday, with their largest public event since 1997.
With plenty to see and do, everyone was busy with interactive demonstrations, family-friendly experiments, and even special shows with Mr. Freeze.
“Fermilab was found 50 years ago and we’re a laboratory of great discovery, we’re known around the world,” said Director of Fermilab, Nigel Lockyer. “So we wanted to share it with everyone today and surprisingly we had 20,000 people register in no time at all so we actually closed registration. We have 80 school buses traveling around the site, showing people things. And we’ve opened it up to parts of the lab that we don’t normally show so that’s probably the exciting thing for people that want to go in tunnels and see magnets and things like that.”
Families viewed the prairie and bison herd, and even went underground to explore the lab’s giant magnet and accelerators. With all the scientific fun, there was a particular goal in mind…
“See if we can create the next Einstein,” said Lockyer.
And that goal is on its way.
“Science is actually one of my favorite subjects in school,” said Jeremy, 12. “I liked how-what kind of different matters there are, like how there’s each different activities you get to participate in.”
“We got to see explosions and stuff, we got to see nitrogen and see them put it in a balloon and it exploded,” said 10-year-old Abigail.
“I wanted to come because I’m kind of interested in it [science] and I think it’d be kind of cool to learn,” said Rhiann, 11.
Fermilab is open to the public every day, and to find out more about future events, visit their website.
Naperville News 17’s Christine Lena reports.
