The last photo of the 81 centimeters hydrogen bubble chamber

At mid-day on 8 April 1971 the 81 cm hydrogen bubble chamber (often known as the Saclay chamber since it came to CERN from Saclay) pulsed its last pulse at the proton synchrotron. On the left, the TV camera peering into the chamber transmits one of the last photographs (at 11.59 h.) to the TV screen. (The mysterious presence of a fish casts serious doubt on the origin of all those bubbles.) In other photos, glasses are raised in ac­knowledgment of the chamber's magnificient performance. The blackboard records some figures from the ten years of extremely reliable operation in many experiments — 16.1 million photographs taken in the chamber (5313 km of film) recording an estimated 150 thousand million bubbles!