English: Picture of the
Westinghouse Atom Smasher on the grounds of the old
Westinghouse Research Laboratories at Avenue A, Service Road No. 1, and West Street in
Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, on May 9, 2010. Built in 1937, the "atom smasher" is more accurately termed a
Van de Graaff
particle accelerator. Though decommissioned, it is preserved as a local piece of history. The atom smasher is on the
List of Pittsburgh Landmarks recognized by the
Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF).
On page 470 of
Franklin Toker's book
Pittsburgh: A New Portrait (2009), it says the following: "It was the first testing ground anywhere for the industrial application of
nuclear physics and was used to observe the action of
particles that were shot through a
vacuum tube at 100 million miles an hour. From it came the first
fission of
uranium
atoms by
gamma rays, an important step in the science of
nuclear energy. Based on the discoveries made at this facility, in 1957
Pittsburgh became the world's first nuclear-powered city (the nuclear plant providing the city's power was decommissioned about twenty years later). It is auspicious that
Westinghouse preserved the historic atom smasher rather than scrapping it. Today, ground zero at
Hiroshima symbolizes the birth of the
nuclear age, but should the peaceful applications of the atom prevail over the military ones, the appropriate symbol of the nuclear age may be this steel tank in Pittsburgh."