Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol and Philadelphia, 2002,
317 pp. - ISBN 0 7503 0865 6
The present volume deals with a particular phase of the early history of experimental nuclear physics: what in effect became a race, circa 1930, between four laboratory teams to be the first to achieve the transmutation of atomic nuclei with artificially accelerated nuclear projectiles (protons) in high-voltage discharge tubes or vacuum chambers. (Experiments 15 years earlier under Eest Rutherford had relied on alpha-particles from radium sources in the disintegration of nitrogen nuclei.) The laboratories and their team leaders were John D Cockcroft at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England; Merle A Tuve at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) of the Caegie Institution of Washington; Eest О Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory and Department of Physics of the University of Califoia in Berkeley; and Charles С Lauritsen at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, Califoia Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA.
Contents.
Preface. Acknowledgments.
Prologue.
The english stage is set.
American beginnings.
How many volts?
Protons, electrons, and gamma-rays.
Protons east and west.
Giants of electricity.
1932.
Runners up.
Deuterium.
The americans forge ahead.
Fission: retu of lightfoot.
Epilogue.
Select bibliography. Name index. Subject index.
The present volume deals with a particular phase of the early history of experimental nuclear physics: what in effect became a race, circa 1930, between four laboratory teams to be the first to achieve the transmutation of atomic nuclei with artificially accelerated nuclear projectiles (protons) in high-voltage discharge tubes or vacuum chambers. (Experiments 15 years earlier under Eest Rutherford had relied on alpha-particles from radium sources in the disintegration of nitrogen nuclei.) The laboratories and their team leaders were John D Cockcroft at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England; Merle A Tuve at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) of the Caegie Institution of Washington; Eest О Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory and Department of Physics of the University of Califoia in Berkeley; and Charles С Lauritsen at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, Califoia Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA.
Contents.
Preface. Acknowledgments.
Prologue.
The english stage is set.
American beginnings.
How many volts?
Protons, electrons, and gamma-rays.
Protons east and west.
Giants of electricity.
1932.
Runners up.
Deuterium.
The americans forge ahead.
Fission: retu of lightfoot.
Epilogue.
Select bibliography. Name index. Subject index.