# What is Being Built Under New York? ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York.webp]] **Creator:** The B1M · **Presenter:** Fred Mills · **Published:** 2026-08-12 · **Length:** 17:36 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_cqgL2UZFk) > Caption source: YouTube English (en-GB) manual captions via yt-dlp (android client; default client hit bot-check). Chapters from the video description; full written story on [theb1m.com](https://theb1m.com/video/electron-ion-collider). Interviewee name and title from narration and the written story (Abhay Deshpande). Sponsored by Trolex. ## Outline ### 0:00 Intro — the weird folder on Long Island - **0:00** Fred rifling through "ideas for another video on a big New York project": Penn Station rebuild, JFK's multi-billion-dollar upgrade, a new skyscraper — then a folder that keeps popping up: something on Long Island that looks nothing like a station or a tower. - **0:36** Unless you're a nuclear physicist, you probably won't guess it. It is a **particle accelerator in New York**, sitting for more than a quarter of a century on the doorstep of the world's most famous city. - **0:57** Not anymore: this "spectacular contraption" is being **shut down and replaced with something even crazier**. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t0045.webp]] ### 1:09 Large Hadron Collider — the media storm RHIC never got - **1:09** Science megaprojects rarely make an international media storm. In **2008**, the completion of CERN's **Large Hadron Collider** did: news trucks descended on Geneva for the official switch-on. - **1:25** The appeal was smashing subatomic particles together in a massive underground ring to simulate the dawn of the universe — plus colourful theories about recreating the Big Bang or mini black holes (a comedian clip jokes about being "drawn slowly towards Switzerland"). - **1:57** None of that should have been a concern: scientists in America had already been running similar experiments for years, just on a smaller scale — and as far as anyone knows, nobody got imploded, vaporised, or teleported. ### 2:17 Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider - **2:17** That American machine is the **Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)**. It began operation in **2000** at **Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)** — one of **17 federally funded** research institutions under the **US Department of Energy**. - **2:36** Like the LHC, it collides particles in a huge ring-shaped tunnel at almost light speed; the ring is clearly visible from above. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t0220.webp]] - **2:47** Purpose: recreate conditions right after the Big Bang (~**14 billion years ago**) by firing two beams of ions in opposite directions around a **3.8 km** ring and smashing them with **over 1,000 superconducting magnets**. - **3:11** Typical ions: **uranium** nuclei or similar — even **gold** — colliding in one of two spots at the gigantic detectors **STAR** and **sPHENIX**. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t0325.webp]] - **3:29** Collision temperatures: around **250,000 times** hotter than the core of the Sun — about **four trillion degrees Celsius** — melting the ions and releasing **quarks** and **gluons**, the building blocks of protons and neutrons and the "glue" that binds them. ### 3:57 RHIC's Experiments — quark–gluon plasma - **3:57** **Abhay Deshpande** (associate laboratory director for nuclear and particle physics at BNL) frames the question: what was the state of matter just before quarks and gluons formed protons and neutrons — when they were free to roam? - **4:18** Gold is used because it is one of the heaviest common elements: packed with protons and neutrons, it raises the chance of creating a **quark–gluon plasma** — the matter that existed roughly between **one millionth and one trillionth of a second** after the Big Bang. - **4:51** That free-roaming form of matter had never been seen before RHIC. Once the universe expanded and cooled, the plasma became ordinary visible matter. - **5:21** All of this happens in a tunnel under a radiation shield of sand and earth — a hazardous place to dig and work. ### 5:38 Sponsor: Trolex AIR X - **5:38** Tunnelling means silica and other dust. Fred pitches **Trolex's AIR X** range: **AIR XD** for dust levels and particle size with alerts; **AIR XS** to distinguish respirable crystalline silica from total dust. Freestanding, transportable, stainless steel, **IP66** enclosure, keypad/RGB display, and a free live/historic data platform. - **7:01** Link / QR to Trolex; then back to particle physics. ### 7:14 BNL's Discoveries - **7:14** Regular B1M viewers may recall Fred's trip to Sweden's **European Spallation Source**; here the scale drops further — inside neutrons, to quarks and gluons. - **7:42** RHIC was first to show that post–Big Bang plasma behaved more like a **liquid than a gas**. The later, larger LHC built on those findings at higher energy. - **8:02** CERN became world-famous for the LHC, but **many early breakthroughs happened at Brookhaven**. ### 8:13 The Ring's Origins — AGS, ISABELLE, RHIC - **8:13** Just south of RHIC's giant ring is a smaller one: the **Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS)**, launched in **1960** as the world's leading accelerator of its day — a half-mile circumference earth-covered tunnel that shot protons at then-unprecedented energies. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t0820.webp]] - **8:46** AGS work earned **three Nobel Prizes**; it is still running. It fed ions into RHIC and also supplies beams to **NASA's Space Radiation Laboratory** on the same site. - **9:06** The big ring's tunnel was dug in the **1970s** for **ISABELLE**, which was cancelled after about five years when superconducting-magnet problems proved too severe. A year later the usable tunnel and parts were proposed for a new machine — that became **RHIC**, which started experiments almost two decades after ISABELLE was scrapped. - **9:51** For more than **25 years**, particles were smashed while most New Yorkers had no idea. In **early 2026**, RHIC was **permanently switched off** — "closing one of the most successful research facilities ever built by the US Department of Energy." ### 10:08 From RHIC to EIC - **10:08** RHIC had created and studied the plasma; open questions remained about how quarks and gluons are structured and what binds them. That is the job of the replacement: the **Electron-Ion Collider (EIC)**. - **10:48** As the name says, it collides **electrons with ions** — the only accelerator in the world designed to do so. Scattered quarks and other particles are picked up by a new detector. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t1045.webp]] - **11:16** One scientific thread follows the LHC's **Higgs boson**: quarks account for only a small percentage of a proton's mass. Deshpande: the LHC explained roughly **2% or 5%** of the mass of the universe; understanding gluon interactions is needed for the remaining **~95%**. ### 11:54 The Upgrade — reuse, ePIC, disassembly - **12:06** Like RHIC, the EIC has a head start: BNL will reuse much of the existing infrastructure, including RHIC's giant tunnel. One of the two rings stays for ions; the second is replaced with an **electron** ring. Beams meet at the **ePIC** detector ("epic" is the real name, not Fred's joke). - **12:45** ePIC alone is bigger than an American school bus: a **ten-metre** barrel detector plus instruments extending **45 metres** each way down the beamline. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t1310.webp]] - **13:06** Fred pauses on a physical scale model of the detector (tiny scientist figures included): "10 out of 10… No notes." - **13:22** Other additions: a new **Electron Accelerator** and particle source off to one side; power buildings; possibly a second detector later. - **13:41** Weeks after RHIC went offline, Deshpande's team was already disconnecting one ring and systematically removing magnets to storage — some relocated for future EIC use. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t1350.webp]] - **14:12** More than **1,000** RHIC magnets are retained, plus the same ion source (so AGS stays busy). Support buildings, roads, electrical and refrigeration facilities carry over. - **14:31** The EIC complex: **34 buildings** covering over **34,000 square metres** (~**6.5 American football fields**), plus **42 substations**, **15 cooling towers**, **28 chiller units**, and **five miles** of tunnel piping. ### 15:00 Cost and Timeline - **15:00** Expected cost: almost **$3BN**, on top of the **$2BN** already invested in RHIC infrastructure. First operations not until the **mid-2030s**. Specialised components that exist nowhere else mean it is not a job to rush. ![[images/What-is-Being-Built-Under-New-York-t1505.webp]] - **15:41** Deshpande: about **1,600–1,800** people from institutions worldwide are interested so far, expected to grow **1.5–2×** by operations; roughly **50% US / 50% rest of world**. Partner labs are supplying hardware — e.g. magnets from the **Advanced Photon Source** at **Argonne National Laboratory** in Illinois. ### 16:25 What it Means - **16:25** The EIC is the next leap in particle physics and will influence future accelerators. Spin-offs Fred highlights: better particle beams for **cancer** treatment, accelerators for **computer-chip** design, and new forms of **clean energy**. - **16:56** Even amid 2026's other crises, exploring the origins of the universe can "fundamentally change our world." - **17:15** Trolex sponsor reminder and subscribe to The B1M. ## Things Mentioned ### Projects & machines - **Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC / "Rick")**: 3.8 km ring; operations 2000–early 2026; 1,000+ superconducting magnets; detectors **STAR** and **sPHENIX**. - **Electron-Ion Collider (EIC)**: world-only electron–ion collider; reuses RHIC tunnel; one ion ring kept, one electron ring new; **ePIC** detector (10 m barrel, ±45 m beamline arms); optional second detector later. - **Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS)**: half-mile ring from 1960; three Nobels; still feeds ions / NASA beams. - **ISABELLE**: 1970s collider cancelled after ~5 years (magnet problems); its tunnel became RHIC. - **Large Hadron Collider (LHC)** at **CERN** (Geneva, 2008 switch-on); **Higgs boson**. - **European Spallation Source** (Sweden) — prior B1M visit. - **Advanced Photon Source** magnets from **Argonne National Laboratory** (Illinois) repurposed for EIC. ### Places - **Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)**, Upton, Long Island, New York — one of 17 DOE national labs. - **NASA Space Radiation Laboratory** on the BNL site. - New York project teases: **Penn Station** rebuild, **JFK** upgrade, skyscrapers (intro gag). ### Physics concepts - Quarks, gluons, quark–gluon plasma; gold/uranium ion beams; Big Bang conditions (~14 Ga); proton mass puzzle (~2–5% vs ~95% from gluon interactions per Deshpande). ### Money, scale & schedule - EIC ~**$3BN** plus **$2BN** already in RHIC; mid-**2030s** operations. - Complex: 34 buildings, >34,000 m² (~6.5 football fields), 42 substations, 15 cooling towers, 28 chillers, 5 miles tunnel piping. - Collaboration: ~1,600–1,800 people now → 1.5–2× at run; ~50/50 US/international. ### Sponsor & channel - **Trolex AIR X / AIR XD / AIR XS** dust monitors (paid promotion); Fred's book *Mega Builds*; theb1m.com full story; Get Construction Talking. ## Biographies - **Fred Mills**: Co-founder of The B1M; presenter of this episode; author of *Mega Builds*. - **Abhay Deshpande**: Associate laboratory director for nuclear and particle physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory; on-camera explainer for RHIC science, the EIC mission, magnet teardown, and the international collaboration. - **Adam Savage**: Credited on the theb1m.com written story page for this episode (article byline); video hosted by Fred Mills. - **Trolex**: UK industrial safety company; AIR X dust-monitoring sponsor of this video. - **Brookhaven National Laboratory / US Department of Energy**: Host lab and federal sponsor context for RHIC and the EIC. - **CERN**: European organization operating the LHC; contrasted with Brookhaven's quieter early heavy-ion breakthroughs.