Lawrence and His Laboratory: A History of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Volume I

The Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, was the birthplace of particle accelerators, radioisotopes, and modern big science. This first volume of its history is a saga of physics and finance in the Great Depression, when a new kind of science was born.

Here we learn how Ernest Lawrence used local and national technological, economic, and manpower resources to build the cyclotron, which enabled scientists to produce high—voltage particles without high voltages. The cyclotron brought ...