Historians cite the Roaring Twenties as the decade in which the United States began its transition to a modern, technology-based society. For the first time in the nation's history, a majority of its citizens lived in urban areas. The Golden Age of radio broadcasting began. Automobiles, telephones, and electric appliances became staples. The stock market soared and crashed. Prohibition came and (later) went. Suffrage came and stayed. Politicians gave us isolationism, preachers gave us revivalism, and bootleggers brought us organized crime.
This was also a period of momentous individual achievement and the emergence of new leaders who forever changed the way things had been done. Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic ushered in the age of modern aviation; Babe Ruth's home-run heroics made baseball the national pastime; and Henry Ford's assembly lines opened the doors to mass production. In the arts, the literature of Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, the music of George Gershwin, the humor of Charlie Chaplin, and the paintings of Edward Hopper showed the way with their enduring brilliance. And in the arcane world of science, a 27-year-old physics professor in Berkeley began the work that would launch the modern era of multidiscipline national laboratories. His name was Ernest Orlando Lawrence.
Lawrence arrived at the University of California's Berkeley campus in the summer of 1928, having been wooed from a faculty position with Yale University by promises that included auxiliary connections to UC's Chemistry Department. Until then, the traditional practice of science was that physicists, chemists, and biologists worked within their own departments; seldom did the twain meet. Access to scientists and students from other disciplines, as well as to engineering staff, was critical to Lawrence's success as a researcher. It also set the pattern for the unique laboratory he created.
Inspired by a paper from Norwegian engineer Rolf Wideroe, Lawrence invented a unique circular particle accelerator, which he referred to as his "proton merry-go-round," but which became better known as the cyclotron. The first cyclotron was a pie-shaped concoction of glass, sealing wax, and bronze. A kitchen chair and a wire-coiled clothes tree were also enlisted to make the device work. Despite its Rube Goldberg appearance, the cyclotron proved Lawrence's point: whirling particles around to boost their energies, then casting them toward a target like stones from a slingshot is the most efficient and effective way to smash open atomic nuclei.
This was also a period of momentous individual achievement and the emergence of new leaders who forever changed the way things had been done. Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic ushered in the age of modern aviation; Babe Ruth's home-run heroics made baseball the national pastime; and Henry Ford's assembly lines opened the doors to mass production. In the arts, the literature of Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, the music of George Gershwin, the humor of Charlie Chaplin, and the paintings of Edward Hopper showed the way with their enduring brilliance. And in the arcane world of science, a 27-year-old physics professor in Berkeley began the work that would launch the modern era of multidiscipline national laboratories. His name was Ernest Orlando Lawrence.
Lawrence arrived at the University of California's Berkeley campus in the summer of 1928, having been wooed from a faculty position with Yale University by promises that included auxiliary connections to UC's Chemistry Department. Until then, the traditional practice of science was that physicists, chemists, and biologists worked within their own departments; seldom did the twain meet. Access to scientists and students from other disciplines, as well as to engineering staff, was critical to Lawrence's success as a researcher. It also set the pattern for the unique laboratory he created.
Inspired by a paper from Norwegian engineer Rolf Wideroe, Lawrence invented a unique circular particle accelerator, which he referred to as his "proton merry-go-round," but which became better known as the cyclotron. The first cyclotron was a pie-shaped concoction of glass, sealing wax, and bronze. A kitchen chair and a wire-coiled clothes tree were also enlisted to make the device work. Despite its Rube Goldberg appearance, the cyclotron proved Lawrence's point: whirling particles around to boost their energies, then casting them toward a target like stones from a slingshot is the most efficient and effective way to smash open atomic nuclei.
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