Meeting Reports: Forty Years with Synchrotron Radiation at DESY

Abstract

On May 19, 2004, 250 guests from all over the world joined the DESY research center to celebrate 40 years of research with synchrotron radiation at DESY in Hamburg. “The first measurements with the light beam from the DESY ring accelerator started in 1964. DESY was one of the seed laboratories in which the worldwide success story of research with synchrotron radiation began,” Albrecht Wagner, chairman of the DESY Board of Directors, explained in his welcoming address. “Today, more than 1,900 scientists from 31 countries come to DESY every year to carry out experiments with synchrotron radiation.” Forty years ago, synchrotron radiation at DESY started from scratch. At the beginning of the 1960s, the radiation generated by the electrons in the bending magnets of their new 6 GeV electron synchrotron was regarded by DESY particle physicists as an unwanted, disruptive effect.