Practical Applications
As generations build upon others, potential applications increase in the use of particle physics technology. In 1930, the first hand-held cyclotron was built at Berkeley, California by Ernest O. Lawrence. More powerful accelerators were built soon after. The Berkeley cyclotron was later used to produce medical isotopes for research and treatment. The first application of this technology in the treatment of cancer was by Lawrence himself with his own mother as a patient. Medical science now uses particle beams in life saving technologies.
This technology is also used in the superconducting of wires and cables. This is used for Magnetic Resonance Imaging magnets and ultimately the World Wide Web. Less known uses also include behavioral study of fluids and motions.
Additional applications are found in medicine, national security, industry, computing, science, and workforce development illustrate a long and growing list of beneficial practical applications with contributions from particle physics.
Read more about this topic: Experimental Particle Physics
Famous quotes containing the word practical:
“Whatever practical people may say, this world is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas. It is a matter of the very greatest importance that our theories of things that seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far as possible true, and as far as possible removed from error.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)