D. Allan Bromley

The development of electrostatic accelerators

Abstract A brief history of the development of electrostatic accelerators, from 1926 to the present, is given; a number of historic photographs of the early accelerators have been included. The development of charge-changing acceleration has been traced from the pioneering work of Dempster at Chicago and of Gerthsen at Geissen. An attempt has been made to follow the development of the major technical innovations which have made feasible the present generation of large electrostatic accelerators.

Science, technology, and politics

Abstract After some general remarks, this paper presents a brief overview of the relationships among science technology and politics. This is followed by an examination of the seven most important technological revolutions of the past five centuries, laying a foundation for consideration of recent trends in US Research and Development and our investments within them. The paper concludes with an examination of the impact of President George W. Bush’s proposed budget for science and technology in the 2002 fiscal year. This paper is based on the Sheffield Lecture delivered by Dr. Bromley at Yale University, March 22, 2001.

The President's Scientists: Reminiscences of a White House Science Advisor

Historical background 2 The Way to Washington 3 Early Days in Washington 4 Rebuilding the Office of Science Policy 5 Bridge Building 6 Revitalising the Federal Coordinating Council 7 The Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 8 The Challenge of Education 9 Technology and Technology Policy 10 Environmental Matters 11 Health and Quality of Life 12 Science, Technology, and National Security 13 Relations with External Constituencies 14 International Science and Technology 15 Funding U.S. Science and Technology 16 Concluding remarks.

The Other Frontiers of Science.

Frontiers of science are usually considered as those areas where the boundares of human knowledge are being pushed most vigorousl into the unknown. These are the intemal frontiers. But no less important are the external frontiers. Those bordering on the federal govermment, on education, on private industry and on intemational affairs and the developing world are among the most critical and demanding. Some of the outstanding problems facing science, and scientists in these extemal interactions, are discussed within the context of our changing national and international priorities.

Nuclear Molecular Resonances in Heavy-Ion Collisions.

A significant trend within experimental nuclear physics over the past two decades has been the study, with ever‐increasing precision, of the properties of nuclei under various extreme conditions. While such experiments have tended to bring the relatively unstructured many‐body features of nuclear systems into the foreground, they have occasionally shown evidence of remarkably simple patterns of motion, even in situations differing drastically from those characterizing the nuclear ground state. We will here consider one such excitation, the quasimolecular mode, in which the nucleus appears to have the form of two smaller nuclei orbiting about each other.

Clustering Phenomena in the Nuclear Many-Body System

Fragmentary evidence for nuclear clustering phenomena has been found throughout the periodic table, from helium to uranium and from quarks to transient supernuclei. But we still face more questions than answers; the field is a dynamic and promising one. We understand the origin of alpha particle clustering in light nuclei and there is growing evidence for a new dipole collectivity in nuclei closely related to such clustering near closed shells; but we do not understand helion or triton clustering or indeed whether it even exists. We do not know to what excitations or to what angular momenta clustering persists even in the most carefully studied cases.

Neutrons in science and technology

In the four decades since the first controlled nuclear chain reaction made them available in abundance, neutrons have had a revolutionary impact on much of science and technology. Best known, perhaps, are the neutrons roles in energy production and nuclear medicine. However, this particle has made, and is making, enormous contributions in dozens of other areas of science and technology.

The Explosive Growth of Postwar Physics, 1950–1999

The number of such meetings increased rapidly as physicists from the Manhattan Project, the Radiation Laboratory and other major wartime facilities, who had dispersed to the universities and to a few industrial organizations, came together to try to obtain an overview that would permit them to select a particular area of research that they felt was most promising and best suited to their talents and equipment.

An Historical Overview, 1900–1949

As suggested by Figure 1, science and its applications—which we would today call technology—have been valued in American society from the very beginning. As we approach the close of the twentieth century, it is entirely appropriate that we celebrate the role of our particular sector of this science and technology—that is, physics and its applications. It is obviously impossible to cover so rich a field with anything approaching completeness, so I will apologize in advance to all those who feel that their work has been slighted. It has often been said that one picture is worth a thousand words, I shall therefore include a large number of pictures. My goal in this part of this report is to remind the reader of some of the high points of physics during the first half of our century that laid the foundation for modern physics and of the importance of these discoveries to society and to the human race in general.

Whither Nuclear Physics

Today in the US federal government and in much of the US scientific community the accepted wisdom is that nuclear physics is a mature science (with all the negative connotations that the term implies), that it n o longer addresses important problems, that its activities have little to d o with the rest of physics or technology, and that it is no longer a n attractive or effective field for the training of physicists. While none of this is true, the question is, “How did such a negative view develop?” O n the basis of close to 40 years as an active nuclear physicist, four years in Washington as The Assistant for Science and Technology to President .George Bush, and six years as Dean of Engineering a t Yale, I have become convinced that it reflects the rather strange behavior of nuclear physicists themselves. It is characteristic of nuclear physicists, in general, that they rarely show enthusiasm for the work of any of their colleagues; when proposals and papers are sent to them for peer review, the response tends to be lukewarm and ccrtainly lacking in enthusiasm. This is in dramatic contrast to what happens in the other fields of physics, where the typical response is strongly in favor of funding the proposal and strongly supportive of immediate publication of the paper submitted, except in the most questionable of cases. Standing between “big” and ‘‘little’’ science, nuclear physics has traditionally been recognized as an excellent training field for physicists generally. In order to be SUCcessful, particularly in experimental nuclear physics, the students must learn a systems approach and must engage the interest and cooperation of other students and faculty numbers if they are to succeed. At the same time, they must develop a working knowledge of a very broad range of techniques and technologies in order to carry out successful measurements on the nuclear system. In parallel, nuclear theory demands a knowledge of the frontiers of mathematics and the concepts of condensed matter, particle, atomic, and other areas of physics. And yet because of the scale involved the student remains in intellectual control of the entire problem under investigation. Over the years in my own laboratory I have triedand been reasonably successful-at placing one third of my graduates in academic positions, one third in industrial positions, and one third in’governmental and other activities. I consider this a healthy mix and would have considered it a failure had all of my graduates been interested specifically in nuclear physics. We are, after all, educating physicists. Consider some of the recent developments and discoveries in nuclear physics. The supersymmetry effects predicted by Iachello were found by Metz, Jolie, and their collaborators using a new ultra-high resolution detection system developed by Graw in Munich. This constitutes the first concrete evidence for supersymmetry-something long sought for in particle physics-yet found in nature. An entirely new set of what has been called critical point symmetry predictions applicable to nuclei in regions of shape change has recently been developed by Iachello and found experimentally by Casten and Zamfir in 134Ba and lS2Sm. Not only are these important discoveries in nuclear physics but the underlying symmetry concepts have been found, by Yamanouchi and Vaccaro to apply equally well to molecular systems in chemistry. This evidence for other validity of these symmetry concepts in both nuclear and molecular systems follows on the earlier demonstrations that the concepts underlying the very powerful interacting boson model for nuclei are equally applicable to molecules and macromolecules. Such expansion of the concepts fundamental to nuclear models and their applications have been found in several other