Los Alamos National Laboratory

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de:Los Alamos National Laboratory ja:ロスアラモス国立研究所

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed by the University of California, located in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Laboratory is one of the largest multidisciplinary institutions in the world. It is the largest institution and the largest employer in northern New Mexico with approximately 6,800 University of California employees plus approximately 2,800 contractor personnel. The annual budget is approximately $1.2 billion.

Approximately one-third of the Laboratory's technical staff members are physicists, one-fourth are engineers, one-sixth are chemists and materials scientists, and the remainder work in mathematics and computational science, biological science, geoscience, and other disciplines. Professional scientists and students also come to Los Alamos as visitors to participate in scientific projects. The staff collaborates with universities and industry in both basic and applied research to develop resources for the future.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory also used to host the ArXiv.org e-print archive.

The Laboratory was founded in the midst of World War II as part of what is now called the Manhattan Project to provide nuclear weapons. In September 1942, the difficulties involved with conducting preliminary studies on nuclear weapons at universities scattered throughout the country indicated the need for a laboratory dedicated solely to that purpose.

In 2003, dissatisfaction with scandals at the laboratory led the Department of Energy to open its contract with the University of California to bids from other vendors. Names that have been mentioned among those interested in bidding for the laboratory include private contractors such as Lockheed-Martin and other universities such as the University of Texas.

External links

• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• "Protecting the Nation's Nuclear Materials". Government Calls Arms Complexes Secure; Critics Disagree. NPR.