Work at the University of California Radiation Laboratory

After the war ended, I had to make decisions about my future work. Alvarez strongly urged me to go back with him to join the staff at the University of California Radiation Laboratory (UCRL) and help him translate his ideas about proton linear accelerators into practice. I also had an offer for an industrial position at what was then the Bell Telephone Laboratories, and there was a strongly expressed interest in having me join the faculty at my alma mater, Princeton University. I decided to stay in California, and follow Luis Alvarez’s lead. I had no experience whatsoever in nuclear physics, highenergy particle physics, or the design and operation of high-energy accelerators, nor even in radio-frequency or microwave technology, but the idea proposed by Luis Alvarez was enormously appealing to me, so I accepted a staff position at UCRL.