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Ed Condon and the NBS Radiation Physics Laboratory (3/23/05)
This autobiographical sketch describes two unusual circumstances in National Bureau of Standards (NBS) history (a director who was oriented towards basic experimental as well as theoretical research in 1945 and a move of the entire NBS to Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1964) that made it possible for NBS to obtain substantial financial support for the relatively esoteric research field of photonuclear physics using high-energy, but low-power betatrons and linacs. Also, it explains why the appearance of this research in the 1950's and the 1960's did not produce adequate industrial support later in the 1970's, during the recession in science, to avoid closing a part of the Radiation Physics Laboratory; and why now in the year 2005 with the invention of new electron accelerators with high power as well as high energy, industry should be seeking significant new research with electrons and x-rays at NBS.
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