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Re: Non-tech Question





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> From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Non-tech Question
> Date: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 12:25 AM
> 
> Original Poster: "Gavin Dingley" <gavin.dingley-at-astra.ukf-dot-net> 
> 
> Hi Ted,
> here are a few applications / former uses for the tesla coil.
> 
> 1) It was the power supply for the first ever particle accelerator (the
> cyclotron)

First particle accelerators were potential drop types (Cockroft-Walton and
Van deGraaf being notable examples).  The cyclotron was a way to get higher
particle energies than one could get with a straight potential drop
technique without going to really high voltages (although Round Hill at
+/-5 MV (10 MV bipolar) was pretty impressive), and in a compact space.

>From my reading, I understand that Lawrence's first cyclotron only used an
accelerating voltage of 20 kV, and was probably driven by a high power RF
oscillator/amplifier.  A damped sinusoid, characteristic of a tesla coil,
would not be particular useful in a cyclotron, since you want a very
uniform amplitude across the "dee"s so that the speed up per half cycle is
consistent.
>