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:
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)