John Adams in 1959

On 24 November 1959, the Proton Synchrotron accelerated particles to 24 GeV. John Adams, leader of the construction team, announced the achievement in the Main Auditorium. In his hand can be seen an empty vodka bottle, which he had received from Nikitin with the message that it was to be drunk when CERN passed Dubna's world record energy of 10 Gev. The bottle now contains a polaroid photograph of the 24 GeV pulse ready to be sent to the Soviet Union.