PUBLICITY accorded to power reactor development and to noises from the Marshall Islands notwithstanding, the Atomic Energy Commission still has a healthy interest in those parts of its programs which are devoted to fundamental physical research. A prominent example is the AEC‐financed $9 million Bevatron recently completed at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley. Housed in a circular building that rests in a depression of Charter Hill overlooking the University campus, the 10 000‐ton proton accelerator was first successfully operated at an initial energy level of 20 Mev on February 15th. By March 12th the energy had been gradually increased to 5 billion electron volts and, according to a University announcement, efforts are continuing to reach the machine's full design energy of 6.25 Bev.