First Generation of Particle Accelerators

The first generation of proton accelerators capable of providing intense beams of pions and hence muons as a product of its decay, became available towards the end of 1950s. With these accelerators great advances in muon research were achieved and some embryonic sciences and fundamental particle physics with muons were born. Some notably early accelerators are the Nevis Columbia, SREL Berkeley USA and CERN Synchrocyclotrons. They were followed by