The Single Event Revolution

Abstract

This paper presents the untold history of the early days of the Single Event Effects (SEE) revolution. It emphasizes the period from 1978 to 1983 when single events went from unknown to a major part of radiation effect studies. Some threads are followed to current studies to place ideas in context. There were two aspects that were revolutionary. Conceptually, the community was not ready for radiation effects that depended on single particles. Second, the test community needed to transition to testing using particle accelerators. The article will discuss how various organizations and individuals were introduced to the problem and how they developed what became the common knowledge of single event effects.