Accelerator-driven systems for nuclear energy

摘要

Some years alter Ernest Rutherford invented nuclear physics, he expressed a wish for "a copious supply of atoms and electrons which have an individual energy far transcending that of the a and p particles" available from natural sources so as to "open up an extraordinarily interesting field of investigation". He was calling for the invention of the particle accelerator, but probably had no idea that by 2011 - the centenary of his famous publication on the nuclear atom- some 30000 of them would operate worldwide, mostly for applications outside discovery science.