Article ID: CBB001552128

From Periphery to Center: Synchrotron Radiation at DESY, Part I: 1962--1977 (2015)

unapi

In its fifty-year history, the German national research laboratory DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, German Electron Synchrotron) has undergone a gradual transformation from a single-mission particle physics laboratory to a multi-mission research center for accelerator physics, particle physics, and photon science. The last is an umbrella term for research using synchrotron radiation and, in later years, free-electron laser. Synchrotron radiation emerged initially as a peripheral part of the laboratory activities but grew to become a central experimental activity at DESY via a series of changes in the organizational, scientific, and infrastructural setup of the lab, and in its contextual scientific, political, and societal environment. This article chronicles the first sixteen years (1962--77) of the history of synchrotron radiation at DESY and its gradual transformation from peripheral and parasitic to a regular and recognized research program. The article complements previous writings on DESY history by focusing on synchrotron radiation, and it adds to the body of knowledge about the crucial renewal of Big Science laboratories toward the end of the twentieth century. This renewal culminated in the close-down of several particle physics machines in the early 2000s and their replacement by facilities dedicated to the study of the structure, properties, and dynamics of matter by the interaction with vacuum ultraviolet/X-ray photons. Therefore, this article contributes to the knowledge about the emergence and growth of synchrotron radiation as a laboratory resource, the understanding of processes of renewal in Big Science, and the general history of late-twentieth-century science.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001552128/

Similar Citations

Article Olivotto, Cristina; (2009)
The G-Stack Collaboration (1954): An Experiment of Transition (/isis/citation/CBB000950445/)

Article Giudice, Gian Francesco; (2012)
Big Science and the Large Hadron Collider (/isis/citation/CBB001220408/)

Article Riordan, Michael; (2000)
The Demise of the Superconducting Super Collider (/isis/citation/CBB000110055/)

Book Doing, Park; (2009)
Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron: Biology, Physics, and Change in Science (/isis/citation/CBB000952121/)

Article Söding, P.; (2010)
On the Discovery of the Gluon (/isis/citation/CBB001020939/)

Article Heinze, Thomas; Hallonsten, Olof; Heinecke, Steffi; (2015)
From Periphery to Center: Synchrotron Radiation at Desy, Part II: 1977--1993 (/isis/citation/CBB001510454/)

Article Sime, Ruth Lewin; (2010)
An Inconvenient History: The Nuclear-Fission Display in the Deutsches Museum (/isis/citation/CBB001036153/)

Article Paul, Eward; (2013)
50 Years of Experimental Particle Physics in Bonn. A Personal Recollection (/isis/citation/CBB001320784/)

Article Thomas Heinze; Olof Hallonsten; (2017)
The reinvention of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 1992–2012 (/isis/citation/CBB100710470/)

Book Phalkey, Jahnavi; (2013)
Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth-Century India (/isis/citation/CBB001213742/)

Article Westfall, Catherine; (2003)
Rethinking Big Science: Modest, Mezzo, Grand Science and the Development of the Bevalac, 1971-1993 (/isis/citation/CBB000340620/)

Article Wang, Xiaoyi; Bai, Xin; (2011)
The Proposal and Decision to Build the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (/isis/citation/CBB001221349/)

Article Reed, B. Cameron; (2011)
Liquid Thermal Diffusion during the Manhattan Project (/isis/citation/CBB001036137/)

Article Boato, Giovanni; (2007)
The Measurement of the Elementary Charge by Rutherford and Geiger (/isis/citation/CBB001023641/)

Article Crease, Robert P.; (2008)
The National Synchrotron Light Source, Part I: Bright Idea (/isis/citation/CBB000932042/)

Article Kathryn M. Keeble; (2018)
Frankenstein's Machine: Redressing Mark Oliphant’s Scientific Reputation (/isis/citation/CBB089515552/)

Authors & Contributors
Heinze, Thomas
Hallonsten, Olof
Keeble, Kathryn M.
Hein Brookhuis
Heinecke, Steffi
Westfall, Catherine L.
Concepts
Atomic, nuclear, and particle physics
Physics
Big science
Particle accelerators
Laboratories
Scientific apparatus and instruments
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
United States
Germany
Europe
Canberra
Switzerland
Italy
Institutions
SCK CEN Belgian Nuclear Research Centre
Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)
Kellogg Radiation Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment