“Crunching numbers” computers and physical research in the AEC laboratories

Abstract The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) laboratories provided an arena for the application of the computer to scientific problems and the resources to build the massive number‐crunching computers of the Cold War era. Although these were initially acquired for nuclear weapons design and evaluation, high‐energy physics faced data analysis problems of comparable magnitude to those presented by nuclear weapons, and partnerships between AEC laboratories and industry produced the computing technology to handle them. The earliest computational work in the field of high‐energy particle physics occurred in these laboratories, and physicists familiar with this work transferred the technology to multiprogram laboratories of the AEC, universities, and the physics community at large. The computer exemplifies processes of technology transfer in modern big science.