A Look Back

Rib cage attached to the soluble organ cavity mold and positioned inside the hollow torso silicone mold.
// A Look Back

The Lawrence Livermore Realistic Torso Phantom

Livermore researchers construct three realistic torso-only manikins to aid with radiation measurement.
Man stanading next to large scientific equipment
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The discovery of carbon-14 and CAMS

The discovery of carbon-14 leads to accelerator mass spectrometry at Livermore.
Man sitting at typewriter on left, woman, seated, on right.
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The birth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research

Artificial intelligence research begins at Lawrence Livermore.
One man sitting in experimental automobile frame, another standing next to it
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The powered roadway for electric vehicles

In 1980, LLNL researchers worked on a powered roadway for electric vehicles that they hoped would change the face of the nation’s transportation system.
B&W photo of Richard Post sitting next to giant magnet
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Project Sherwood and magnetic fusion

Livermore began investigating controlled thermonuclear reactions and fusion early in its history
A photo from 1970 showing Marvin Van Dilla working with flow cytometry.
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The beginning of LLNL’s biomedical program

In 1963, a comprehensive, long-range program dealing with the sources and biological effects of human-made radiation was established by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore.

W. Lawrence Gates, the chief scientist and first leader of LLNL’s PCMDI.
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Combating air pollution

The end of World War II heralded an era of population growth throughout the nation and especially in the State of California, where many returning soldiers and their families settled.

From left: George Russell, Harold Brown and Edward Teller.
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The Polaris program

In the summer of 1956, a U.S. Navy-sponsored study (Project Nobska) on anti-submarine warfare was held at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Carl Haussmann and John Emmett, working on lasers in 1973.
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First light — the birth of the Lab’s laser program

Sixty years ago in 1960, at Hughes Aircraft Company in Malibu, California, Thomas Maiman fired his solid-state ruby laser, emitting humankind’s first coherent visible light.

Members of the nuclear clean-up crew at work near Thule Air Base, 1968.
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Operation Crested Ice

On Jan. 21, 1968, an aircraft accident involving a United States Air Force B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland.