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From the Discovery of Radioactivity to the First Accelerator Experiments

  • Chapter
From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles

Abstract

The chapter reviews the historical phases of cosmic ray research from the very beginning around 1900 until the 1940s when first particle accelerators replaced cosmic particles as source for elementary particle interactions. In opposite to the discovery of X-rays or the ionising α-, β- and γ-rays, it was an arduous path to the definite acceptance of the new radiation. The starting point was the explanation that air becomes conductive by the ionising radiation of radioactive elements in the surroundings. In the following years the penetration power of the radiation was studied with the result, that there seems be a component harder than the known γ-rays. Victor F. Hess did in 1912 the key experiment with a hydrogen balloon. He measured with three detectors an increase of ionisation up to altitudes of 5 300 m and discovered the extraterrestrial penetrating radiation. The next phase is characterised by W. Kolhörster’s confirmation in 1914, doubts by R.A. Millikan and others as well as the spectacular re-discovery of cosmic rays by Millikan in 1926. With the invention of new detectors as the cloud chamber and the Geiger–Müller counter and of the coincidence method the properties of cosmic rays could be investigated. One of the striking results was the discovery that cosmic rays are of corpuscular nature. The broad research activities starting end of the 1920s were the begin of a scientific success story, which nobody of the early protagonists might have imagined. In 1932 C.D. Anderson discovered the antiparticle of the electron. It was the birth of elementary particle physics. Four years later the muon was discovered which was for many years wrongly assumed to be the carrier of the short range nuclear force predicted by H. Yukawa. One of the last high-lights before the particle accelerators took over this field of fundamental research was the discovery of the Yukawa particle. In photographic emulsions exposed by cosmic particles the pion was found in 1947. This part of the story ends with first accelerator experiments performed at the Berkeley synchro-cyclotron.

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  1. DESY, Platanenallee 6, 15738, Zeuthen, Germany

    Michael Walter

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  1. Philosophy and Political Science, Faculty 14, TU University Dortmund, Emil-Figge-Str. 50, Dortmund, 44227, Germany

    Brigitte Falkenburg

  2. Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Otto-Hahn-Str. 4, Dortmund, 44227, Germany

    Wolfgang Rhode

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Walter, M. (2012). From the Discovery of Radioactivity to the First Accelerator Experiments. In: Falkenburg, B., Rhode, W. (eds) From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5422-5_2

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