Abstract
By any standards, John Adams had a most remarkable career. He was involved in three important, emerging technologies, radar, particle accelerators and controlled fusion, and had an outstanding impact on the last two. Without a university education, he attained hierarchical positions of the highest level in prestigious national and international organizations. This article covers the CERN part of his career, by offering some personal insights into the different facets of his contributions to major accelerator projects, from the first strong-focusing synchrotron, the PS, to the SPS and its conversion to a proton–antiproton collider. In particular, it outlines his abilities as a leader of an international collaboration, which has served as an example for international initiatives in other disciplines.
Highlights
The eminent role played by John Adams in the field of particle accelerators on the international scene, in particular at CERN, has been well documented in a number of excellent publications
CERN introduced a series of annual lectures, the John Adams Memorial Lectures, which have continued to this very day
We extend the review of his achievements to developments, such as the proton– antiproton project [5], which led to the discovery of the W and Z bosons, and later LEP and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) [6]
Summary
The eminent role played by John Adams in the field of particle accelerators on the international scene, in particular at CERN, has been well documented in a number of excellent publications. John and Mervyn Hine studied the non-linear resonances driven by magnet imperfections using ACE, one of the first computers available in the UK It seemed that because of the high field gradient (n-value) of the first design, magnet construction tolerances would need to be unrealistically tight to avoid these resonances. One day Albert Picot, a minister of the local government, who was a strong supporter of CERN, was visiting our provisional quarters, and he walked around the hall accompanied by John Just when they arrived in front of this machine, which happened to be in operation, something went wrong and a switch suddenly opened under full current, producing a terrifying discharge, which sounded like an explosion. The local authorities thought that any possible extension would have to be in France, which happened ten years later for the construction of the Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) and more extensively, for the SPS, LEP and LHC
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