Abstract
THE cyclotron is essentially an instrument acting as a source of very high velocity nuclear particles-protons, deuterons, neutrons and alpha-particles-which have been used successfully by physicists in the further study of the constitution of matter by atomic bombardment. Although the fundamental principles of the method were known more than ten years ago, it is during the past few years that the problems involved in the design and construction of practical apparatus have been solved by the work of E. O. Lawrence at the University of California, Berkeley. The author of this little monograph, Dr. Mann, spent a period of two years in Prof. Lawrence's laboratory, and so has been able to describe the principles and some of the possibilities of the cyclotron, as the result of first-hand experience. After aii introductory chapter, a description is given of the phenomenon of magnetic resonance acceleration, upon which the operation of the cyclotron depends. Details of the design of the cyclotron vacuum chamber and the associated magnet are then given, followed by somewhat less satisfactory chapters on the radio-frequency supply, and the adjustments and electric and magnetic focusing arrangements involved. The final chapter, entitled “Applications of the Cyclotron”, would appear to be unnecessarily” detailed, and much of the material discussed is not concerned with the cyclotron as such but rather with atomic physics and chemistry. This account could have been made more interesting to the general scientific reader, for whom this series of monographs is intended, by confining the description to a few examples, treated more generally. A good bibliography is included at the end of the book.
The Cyclotron
By Dr. W. B. Mann. (Methuen's Monographs on Physical Subjects.) Pp. xi + 92. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1940.) 3s. net.
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Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Nature 145, 1007 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/1451007c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1451007c0