Happy Birthday! Most folk seem to dread their 50th birthday, so the Ames Lab would seem to be in an unenviable position in having two of them. Yes, that's right as many of you know, since the Lab got its start in 1942 but didn't officially become a national laboratory of the U.S. Atomic Energy commission (DOE's grandparent) until 1947, 50 years ago. It is an appropriate time for a bit of reflection, and it is indeed thought-provoking to consider what we were a half-century ago and what we have become today.

Like most of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories, the Ames Lab began as part of the Manhattan Project, and it responded by quickly developing an entirely new technology for the conversion of uranium ore to high-purity uranium metal and then used that technology to produce more than 2 million pounds of uranium by the end of World War II.

Not surprisingly, we have a much broader spectrum of research activities today since the focus of the agency we serve has expanded dramatically to attack all aspects of the myriad of energy-related problems that face our nation and our planet. Even so, the roots of much of what we do today are evident in our past.

We learned how to work with rare metals and, as you will read in this issue, that has been extrapolated by Karl Gschneidner into the development of gadolinium-based magnetocaloric materials, which have finally made real the tremendous potential of "magnetic refrigeration." To achieve the materials purity demanded by the Manhattan Project, we developed world-class analytical capabilities, which today, as highlighted in this issue, produce unique techniques that include Joe Gray's "K-edge detector" for the identification of radioactive contaminants, and Ed Yeung's amazing instruments for the detection and monitoring of single molecules in solution, which will eventually make possible the early diagnosis of disease.

From our beginning, we have sought new, more efficient ways of performing chemical transformations, and an excellent example of the fruits of these continuing efforts is found in this issue's report on Jim Espenson's development of the catalyst, MTO, which allows one to perform industrially important reactions with such efficiency that there are no products requiring toxic waste disposal or environmental cleanup. Also highlighted in this issue is another example of the Lab's historical commitment to the detailed understanding of materials as a precursor to expanding their uses. Thus, Joe Shinar's use of ODMR to determine the exact nature of the excited-state species in optoelectronic polymers is ultimately directed to control of the decay processes, allowing future applications such as alphanumeric displays.

Of course, there are numerous other trails linking our wide spectrum of activities today to the more singularly focused work of the Lab 50 years ago, and future issues of Inquiry will continue to highlight them. I don't have the faintest idea what those working in the Ames Laboratory will be doing 50 years from now, but I'm confident that whatever it is will be of the highest quality and of vital importance to our nation. Traditions are hard to break.

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Last revision: 4/17/98 sd

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