Comments on: The Laboratory Formerly Known as SLAC

By: Raymond

Raymond — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:49:27 +0000

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (aka Stanford Linear Accelerator Center National Accelerator Laboratory)

Seems like a lot of cloth rending for a change that essentially remains…SLAC.

Sometimes I just don’t understand government logic.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:02:14 +0000

SLAC = Science LAboratory in California

Then you can do anything you want

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:44:25 +0000

#52 – IBM, the trademark initials that now (officially) stand for nothing at all, is owned by INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP of 1 NEW ORCHARD ROAD, ARMONK, New York 10504 according to their latest 10-Q SEC filing. That corporation also has the meaningless, non-acronym ticker symbol IBM on the NYSE and has invested heavily for many years in the initials IBM as a brand, not to be confused with the corporate entity whose initials it doesn’t officially represent.

By: David Phillips

David Phillips — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:54:01 +0000

“Some Large Acronym Center”?
“Stupid Legalese Ain’t Cool”?
“Some Low-energy, Astro, bio- or Condensed-matter” physics center? (The ‘b’ is silent)

OK, I’ll stop, I’ll stop.

By: David Phillips

David Phillips — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:46:39 +0000

How about “SLac Ain’t a Collider”?

By: Marc S

Marc S — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:14:39 +0000

JoAnne—In the hopefully unlikely event that SLAC is renamed, then what happens to the e-mail addresses? We are so used to slac.stanford.edu. And would the first initial of SPIRES have to be changed as well?

BTW, the name “Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility” was a “facility” and not a “lab” because national labs were defined (back then) to have a budget exceeding $100M, and they were a little short of that. Nathan Isgur didn’t object too strongly to the name because he was assured that they could use the abbreviation Jefferson Lab. Note, though, that the e-mail addresses are jlab.org rather than jlab.gov for that reason. Bureaucrats&)_*^#)_*^_*#&+_@

By: Peter Erwin

Peter Erwin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:59:06 +0000

Actually, the case of JPL is rather interesting, since — unlike corporate names such as IBM, where the initials now (officially) stand for nothing at all — JPL still means “Jet Propulsion Laboratory” (Visit their web site and you’ll see this is the case.) This suggests that it is in principle possible for SLAC to go on calling itself “Stanford Linear Accelerator Center” and yet be doing other things.

Sean’s analogy with Pluto is erroneous and confusing; the argument is about possibly changing SLAC’s name, not its classification. If it were an argument about whether SLAC was best described as a “laboratory” or a “center”, or whether it was an FFRDC (”Federally Funded R&D Center”) or not, then the analogy to the “is Pluto a planet” debate would be apropos.

By: capitalistimperialistpig

capitalistimperialistpig — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:39:04 +0000

What’s to be done when an organization survives its rationale? Remember not to name the next one for something transitory. Place names are good: Oxford, Cambridge, Los Alamos. Ditto naming after some famous scientist: Cavendish, Fermilab. Not so good are politicians, whose notoriety or fame may fade: Kennedy, Ray Gunn. Initials, if suitably obscure, may do in a pinch: SLAC, CERN, JPL.

Good luck!

By: Haryo

Haryo — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:18:39 +0000

Here is a suggestion:

Rename the laboratory as ‘SLAC’, and copyrighted the name. Here ‘SLAC’ is a name, and NOT an acronym of anything. It is SLAC, but NOT ‘Stanford Linear Accelerator Center’ anymore.

By: Kendall

Kendall — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:31:29 +0000

This reminds of the many name changing events through the course of the now called INL.