������app

With the interfaces for the tokamak cooling water system now in place (see the “pipes within pipes” visible at the top of this image), the upper levels of the tokamak assembly pit recently received a new coat of white paint. Gone are the large handwritten numbers which, for years, puzzled visitors—a decisively low-tech information system for the most technically complex machine ever designed. (The numbers identified the 18 penetrations for the cooling water pipes).

The white paint, the white wrapping of the gravity supports for the toroidal field coils, the fire-like lights in the very centre of the pit under the correction coils (wrapped in pink), the dull shine of the steel cryostat, and the massive and soaring central column all contribute to the atmosphere of this “Image of the Week”—the beauty and mystery of an environment without equivalent on this planet.