The Spiral Path to Nirvana

Abstract

As every amateur electrician who has caused a distressing short circuit at home knows, high voltages tend to spark over. In as much as the Cockroft–Walton generator was admired as the first in a chain of accelerator developments, it was well recognized that such a generator would be limited in its maximum accelerating voltage because of the high voltage capacity of its switches and capacitors. Such accelerators were also limited in their maximum acceleration capability because the particles experience the high voltage at once, rather than in stages. In any case, even generators such as Van de Graff generators were ultimately limited by electrical breakdowns at high voltages. On a good dry day, one could get only a few million volts. A very clever development was taking place in the USA at this time, growing out of a European invention.