Timeline of particle physics technology
- 1896 - Charles Wilson discovers that energetic particles produce droplet tracks in supersaturated gases.
- 1897-1901 - Discovery of the Townsend discharge by John Sealy Townsend.
- 1908 - Hans Geiger and Ernest Rutherford use the Townsend discharge principle to detect alpha particles.
- 1911 - Charles Wilson finishes a sophisticated cloud chamber.1
- 1928 - Hans Geiger and Walther Muller invent the Geiger Muller tube, which is based upon the gas ionisation principle used by Geiger in 1908, but is a practical device that can also detect beta and gamma radiation. This is implicitly also the invention of the Geiger Muller counter.
- 1934 - Ernest Lawrence and Stan Livingston invent the cyclotron.
- 1945 - Edwin McMillan devises a synchrotron.2
- 1952 - Donald Glaser develops the bubble chamber.3
- 1968 - Georges Charpak and Roger Bouclier build the first multiwire proportional mode particle detection chamber.4
References
References
- Mitton, Simon (2011-02-24). Fred Hoyle: A Life in Science. Cambridge University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-139-49595-0. Retrieved 2026-02-10.
- "The synchrotron a proposed high energy accelerator. Pre-publication typescript". viaLibri. 2025-06-12. Retrieved 2026-02-10.
- "Nobel Prize in Physics 1960". NobelPrize.org. 1926-09-21. Retrieved 2026-02-10.
- "Georges Charpak". CERN Courier. 2010-11-30. Retrieved 2026-02-10.