50 Years of synchrotrons: Adams' Memorial lecture

Fifty years ago Frank Goward of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment Group at Malvern converted a small American betatron to make the worldÕs first synchrotron. At the same time Marcus Oliphant was planning to build at Birmingham a large proton machine with a ring magnet and variable magnetic field. Ideas for this had come to him during night-shifts tending the electromagnetic separators at Oak Ridge during the war. Some seven years later, in 1953, a group gathered together in Geneva to build the PS. A major contributor to the design work which had made this possible was John Adams. An account of some of the achievements in these eventful years will be presented. CERN has built nine synchrotrons/colliders and two temporary test rings. Eight machines are still running. The review will start with the PS, the first proton synchrotron based on the alternating gradient principle invented in 1952 at BNL. The design work of the PS team, under the enlightened leadership of J.B. Adams, and the construction of the machine will be evoked with its successful commissioning at the end of 1959. The remaining synchrotrons, colliders and storage rings will be briefly discussed, with special emphasis on the other major contribution of J.B. Adams to CERN, the SPS, followed by its conversion to the first pp- collider. In most cases, initial, nominal and final performance will be outlined. Major conceptual and constructional advances will also be indicated, leading to a large reduction in the cost per GeV. Finally, after an intensive R&D programme, the construction of the LHC in about to start.