The Echo of Rutherford’s Call

Rutherford’s vision of man-made particle sources leads to early accelerators, among them the Cockroft-Walton and van de Graaff accelerators, as well as cyclotrons. They are used to produce new elements and isotopes, such as technetium, tritium, and carbon-14. Especially cyclotrons are instrumental in treating cancer patients and producing material for atomic bombs. After the invention of phase focusing much higher energy became accessible, making a systematic study of the nuclear forces possible. But the energy is still insufficient to produce V-particles that will play a crucial role in understanding the weak interaction.