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Scholarship & OutreachAccelerators, 1945-1960
Related Topic Guides: Particle Physics, 1935-1955
Contents
Postwar Accelerator Technology
Resources
Robert W. Seidel, "Accelerating Science: The Postwar Transformation of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory," Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 13 (1983): 375-400.
Online: Essay on accelerators at nobelprize.org.
Postwar Accelerator Technology
1945
Edwin McMillan develops the idea of an accelerator (independently developed by the Soviet physicist Vladimir Veksler), employing modulated fields and the concept of particle phase stability. The new "synchrotron" concept promised much impoved efficiency over prewar accelerators, thus making accessible much higher energies.
1946
Funded by the U. S. Army's Manhattan Engineering District through the initiative of Ernest Lawrence, physicist Robert Thornton oversees conversion of the new 184-inch cyclotron at Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley to McMillan's new design. This first "synchro-cyclotron" accelerated deuterons to 195 MeV and alpha particles to 390 MeV.
1946
Through the leadership of Hans Bethe and Robert Bacher, Cornell University establishes its Laboratory of Nuclear Studies. Bacher is named first director and work begins on a 300-MeV accelerator, funded by the new Office of Naval Research (ONR). Meanwhile, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Fred Seitz pushes for a nuclear physics research program, with a new synchro-cyclotron project to be directed by Edward Creutz.
1947
The U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) is officially established January 1, and becomes the main funding agency and coordinator of American accelerator development and construction.
1947
At Berkeley, a group under Luis Alvarez completes a 32-MeV linear proton accelerator in anticipation of linear accelerators possibly proving less expensive than cyclotrons or synchro-cyclotrons of equivalent energy.
1947
At the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi secures funding from the ONR to construct a 450-MeV synchro-cyclotron.
1948
Robert R. Wilson is named director of Cornell's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies following Bacher's departure to become a commissioner at the AEC. Wilson will hold the post for twenty years.
1948
A 240-MeV synchro-cyclotron is completed at the University of Rochester under the supervision of Sidney Barnes.
1949
McMillan completes a 1-meter electron synchrotron at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, achieving energies of 300 MeV.
1949
Cornell's 300-MeV electron synchrotron is completed.
1950
A 380-MeV synchro-cyclotron is completed at Columbia University's new Nevis Laboratories under the leadership of Eugene Booth.
1950
Carnegie Tech's ONR-funded 435-MeV synchro-cyclotron begins operation.
1951
The University of Chicago's 450-MeV synchro-cyclotron, built by Herbert Anderson and John Marshall, is completed.
Biography links
The First Great Synchrotrons
1946
Berkeley physicist William Brobeck designs a 10-GeV proton synchrotron.
1947
The U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) is officially established January 1, and becomes the main funding agency and coordinator of American accelerator development and construction.
1947
To secure AEC funding, Lawrence suggests reducing the energy of Brobeck's proposed accelerator; to ensure antiproton production, McMillan and Wolfgang Panofsky insist on a 6-GeV design.
1947
I. I. Rabi encourages the new Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, to pursue a 10-GeV accelerator; Assistant Director Leland Haworth and accelerator project chair Stanley Livingston ultimately propose a 2.5-GeV accelerator, sufficient to create pion pairs, with the aim of building a larger acclerator later. (On pions, see Particle Physics, 1935-1955).
Resource: Robert P. Crease, Making Physics: A Biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1946-72 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), chapter seven.
1948
In April, the AEC approves plans for a 2.5-GeV synchrotron at Brookhaven and a 6-GeV synchrotron at Berkeley.
1952
At Brookhaven, Stanley Livingston, Ernest Courant, and Hartland Snyder develop the alternating field gradient concept of synchrotron design, leading to "strong focusing" accelerators.
1952
The Cosmotron accelerator, with design and construction led by John Blewett and Kennth Green, goes into operation at Brookhaven. In January 1953 it reaches its full design energy of 3.3 GeV.
Online Resource: Brookhaven's accelerator history page for information on the Cosmotron and the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron.
1954
The 1.3-GeV electron acclerator at Cornell, based on the alternating gradient concept, is completed.
1954
The Bevatron accelerator, capable of achieving energies of up to 6 GeV ("BeV" in the nomenclature of the time), goes into operation at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory.
1954
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is established in Geneva, Switzerland.