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→Confusion with linear accelerators: Simplified link - Ernest Lawrence is mentioned nowhere else on the page, so he deserves his full name written here, I figure |
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=== Confusion with linear accelerators ===
Electrostatic accelerators are often confused with [[linear accelerator]]s simply because they can (but do not always) accelerate particles in a line. As we can see even early in their history, [[particle accelerator|accelerators]] were named in some way referring to the method or type of acceleration. Terminal accelerators pre-date both linear accelerator technology and the nomenclature, so it would be confusing and incorrect to categorize them with a newer technology which is quite different. Linear accelerators use an array of oscillating electric fields, historically arranged in a line, but nothing would prevent a person from using magnets in between the columns of linear accelerators to form some other geometric shape. Oscillating field accelerators do not actually produce beams of particles, but rather packets of particles, unlike electrostatic accelerators which can have a beam current that is constant in time. Thus, the naming scheme for accelerators is based on the method of acceleration, or the physics, and not its geometry, which can be a point of confusion. In fact, it was the oscillating field design of the linear accelerator which inspired [[Ernest
== Understanding the origin of the electron volt ==
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