The Epic Journey of the KATRIN Main Spectrometer

By Alex in Pictures, Science & Tech, Travel on May 13, 2008 at 1:04 am

In November 2006, the people of Leopoldshafen, Germany, saw the spectacle of their lives:

It looked like an alien spaceship, but it was actually the main spectrometer of the KATRIN experiment, a project that will try to to measure the mass of the electron neutrino in 2009.

The spectrometer was built 400 km (250 mi.) away in Deggendorf, but when they wanted to transport it, they found out that it was too big for the roads and the canals, so the spectrometer had to travel the nearly 9,000 km (5,600 mi.) journey through Austria, Hungary, Romania, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Netherlands and finally back to Germany!

Fogonazos has more pics and a couple of YouTube clip about the epic journey of the 200-ton spectrometer: Link – Thanks aberron!

Neat stuff from the NeatoShop:

Tara
May 13th, 2008 at 8:56 am
That’s pretty crazy!
Rich
May 13th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I’m very disappointed with the Germans of the 21st century…

75 years ago, when presented with this problem… The world would have been witness to the “Super lifting Zeppelin”… or some such device…

Going around the long way… for shame!

Of course, in China today… they’d probably wonder why the German authorities didn’t just destroy any house that was in the way.
Thomas
May 13th, 2008 at 10:48 am
That’s an enormous device, just to measure a subatomic particle.
dick cheney
May 13th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
why not just build the thing onsite?
Ali S.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Could you imagine if that tipped over and started rolling an old man with a brown hat and slacks would start running while humming the Indiana Jones theme song?
E
May 13th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
dick, that’s what I was thinking too. Hope that this was sturdy. The worst thing would be to build it, move it then drop it right at the last mile breaking it.
Vako
May 13th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
…”journey through Austria, Hungary, Romania, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Netherlands and finally back to Germany!”…

Yeah, that’s what they did in the 1940′s, too.
Hirudin
May 15th, 2008 at 1:50 am
They just wanted to show off their new toy; plain and simple.
Bret
May 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
See, this is EXACTLY why we need Superman.

Thank’s a LOT, Luther!
DOJ
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:01 am
bad Project Manager, no biscuit

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