Facilities in the United States

Abstract

With every advance in our ability to generate or use the electromagnetic spectrum has come a quantum leap in both science and technology. Consider, for example, the impact of the invention of the telescope, of the discovery of x rays or of the invention of the klystron. During the past decade we have been witnessing another such quantum leap as synchrotron radiation has come into its own as a powerful tool for many applications in research and technology. Those of us who participated in the developments will remember this exciting period when, in a sense, we were learning to use extremely complex electron accelerators or storage rings simply as light sources.