The Infancy of Particle Accelerators: Life and Work of Rolf Wideröe life and work of Rolf Wideröe

The investigation of the smallest components of matter has made remarkable progress in the 20th century and would not have been possible without the extensive use of particle accelerators of high energy. The Norwegian, Rolf Wideroe, who obtained his degree in engineering in Aachen in 1927 by building the first operational linear accelerator, was a pioneer of this development. Wideroe is a multitalented person. For several years he was successful in developing relays for power plants. He subsequently worked for the BBC in Switzerland, building betatrons which were used for materials testing, although mainly for the medical treatment of cancer. This activity led him to study the effects of radiation on living cells. His "two components" theory on this subject attracted a great deal of attention. He was one of the first to introduce the treatment of deeply situated tumours with high-energy electrons and X-rays. Besides many other honours, Wideroe was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering at the Aachen Technical University in 1962. In 1964, he received an honorary medical doctorate from Zurich University and in 1992, he was the winner of the Robert Wilson Prize of the American Physical Society. This autobiography recounts Wideroe's ideas, drawbacks and successes. In the course of the story, the reader is given an overview of all the interesting fields of research with which he was involved.