Advanced Light Source
Physicists in Berkeley California began working on accelerating subatomic particles in the 1920s. In 1929,  Ernest O. Lawrence built the first cyclotron to accelerate subatomic particles. During World War II, a laboratory there was a part of the Manhattan Project. They were given money from the military. In 1942, Lawrence hired  Arthur Brown, Jr. (designer of the Coit Tower in San Francisco) to design a new round building to hold Lawrence's new 4.67 m (184 in) cyclotron.  That building, with expansions, is the one which the ALS is in today. The laboratory was a part of the United States Atomic Energy Commission until 1977 when it was moved to the U.S. Department of Energy.