The posters went up last week, causing furrowed brows and sleepless nights among TRIUMF's leadership team. TRIUMF's promising future – bolstered by an early announcement of funding in the 2014 budget and a new director on the way – was cast into jeopardy by a threatening development brewing at the corner of Wesbrook Mall and Village Lane. It seemed inevitable that TRIUMF's demise was spelled out in the plain white letters which read: "BierCraft Coming Soon."
It's true. The legendary Vancouver restaurant, which has already caused productivity losses and stagnation for surrounding businesses at its Cambie Street and Commercial Drive locations, is coming to Wesbrook Village. Boasting a beverage list longer than your average issue of Physical Review Letters and a menu more extensive than the Five-Year Plan, how could world-leading science compete for researchers' time?
"I knew we had to act fast," explains Jim Hanlon, TRIUMF CEO/CAO. "With 120 craft beers on tap and the world's best plate of mussels just down the road, our 500-person lab could quickly become a ghost town."
TRIUMF leadership feared that with such an enticing establishment in the neighbourhood, staff and visitors alike would trade lab benches for bar stools, leaving experiments untended and emails unanswered. The leadership team put their heads together to combat this contingency by leveraging TRIUMF's unique infrastructure.
"We knew we couldn't match BierCraft's quality German brews," concedes Tim Meyer, who spent two semesters learning the German language and culture during his undergraduate studies. "But who hasn't experienced the joy of a cold beer on a hot day? We saw our niche and set out to make it work for us."
Indeed, TRIUMF has a special knack for making things cold.The Ultra-Cold Neutron source, currently under construction in the Meson Hall, cools neutrons to nearly absolute zero by passing them through successively colder materials, ultimately reaching the ultra-cold speed of 30 km/hour. With expansion to the pre-existing infrastructure, TRIUMF will become the first-ever producer of Ultra-Cold Beer, breaking new ground in the science of craft-beer brewing.
After exhaustive study and repeated experimental trials,researchers have identified the average temperature of beer as between 6 and 9 degrees Celsius. However, TRIUMF's facility will revolutionize the very definition of a 'cold beer,' producing the first-ever stein of 1 milli-Kelvin beer. To accomplish this feat, designs are being drawn for an additional beam line alongside the existing one for the dedicated purpose of beer transport.The beer will undergo the same cooling process as the neutrons, passing through room temperature heavy water, followed by liquid deuterium, and lastly through superfluid helium. Now officially 'ultra-cold,' the beer will be diverted underground into the cafeteria.
With the world's coldest beer on tap at TRIUMF, productivity is expected to soar. Join us in raising a glass to TRIUMF's newest scientific venture!
-Reported by the Communications Co-Conspirators, Melissa and Lindsay
*Please note the publication date of this article when considering its verity.