Electron accelerators

Gerassimos Petratos joined the Hall A collaboration at the Thomas Jefferson Accelerator Facility in 1989. This interview explains his work with the collaboration, which included coordinating the organization of the collaboration, overseeing the development of Hall A detectors, and then scheduling experiments and helping with commissioning.

H. Frederick Dylla discusses topics such as: ruby laser; Bell Laboratories; RCA Engineering Research Center, Canton, New Jersey; Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc. (EG&G); Harold Edgerton; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Franklin Instiutte; Richard Feynman; Mark Zemansky; Princeton University; John King; molecular beams; atomic clocks; bachelors work on acoustics; masters research on low temperature physics; doctoral research on surface physics; Ted Madey; John Yates; Jim Murday; Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; tokamaks; Sandia National Laboratories; Ray Weiss; Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO); benefits of professional societies; Manfred Kaminsky; Argonne National Laboratory; AVS; Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology; National Bureau of Standards (NBS); National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST); Paul Redhead; National Research Council (NRC), Canada; Dennis Manos; College of William and Mary; John Coburn; Harold Winters; Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF); Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA); George Neil; Jefferson Laboratory; free electron lasers; Star Wars program; electron beam accelerator; linear accelerator (LINAC); Rey Whetten; American Institute of Physics.

Abbadessa discusses politics, budget and funding structure at the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as well as the specifics of funding the Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetric Ring (SPEAR). This interview was conducted by Elizabeth Paris as part of her dissertation project on the early history of electron colliding beams in the United States. She is working on her doctorate in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.