US particle Accelerators at age 50
DOI: 10.1063/1.2914366
Fifty years ago, a dramatic race was under way to see who would be first to accelerate protons to an energy high enough to disintegrate the atomic nucleus. This contest, coincidental with the birth of the American Institute of Physics, could be considered as the beginning of what was to become a Golden Age of high‐energy physics. The race might also be taken to mark the end of an Age of Innocence of nuclear physicists. Heretofore during an era to which all physicists look back with nostalgia, much of the fundamental knowledge about the nucleus had been obtained by the use of rather primitive experimental devices, followed by sophisticated analysis. Rutherford’s famous α‐particle scattering experiment is a case‐in‐point—a little string and sealing wax and not much else. Not much, that is, except great leaps of reason and imagination. In the future, in addition to make‐do skills, physicists were going to have to master arcane techniques, such as those of mechanical and electrical engineers. Indeed they would have to invent a whole new technology of accelerator building in order to explore the inside of the nucleus and to identify and study its constituent parts.
References
1. This article is not intended to provide a history of the field; for detailed reviews see: M. StanleyLivingston, Early History of Particle Accelerators: Advances in Electronics and Electron Physics 50, 1 (1980)
and Particle Accelerators: A Brief History, Harvard, Cambridge (1969);
Raymond G. Herb, Particle Accelerator Conference (National Bureau of Standards) March 1980, Washington, DC;
E. M. McMillan, Early Accelerators and their Builders, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory 1747 (1973);
Ugo Amaldi, Particle Accelerators and Scientific Culture, CERN 79‐06 (12 July 1979).2. Bern Dibner, The Great Van Marum Electrical Machine, The Natural Philosopher, Blaisdell (1963).
3. Physics in Perspective Vol II, National Research Council (1972).
4. Louis Rosen, Science 173, 490 (6 August 1971);
James E. Leiss, Relevance of Accelerator Technology, Particle Accelerator Conference (IEEE) March 1981, Washington, DC.5. Denis Robinson, 6th Conference on Applications of Accelerators in Research and Industry, April 1981 IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.
More about the Authors
R. R. Wilson. Columbia University, New York, New York.
