From periphery to center: Synchrotron radiation at DESY, Part I: 1962-1977

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences

Volumn 45, Issue 3, 2015, Pages 447-492

  Heinze, Thomas ^a   Hallonsten, Olof ^a   Heinecke, Steffi ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WUPPERTAL   (Germany)

Author keywords

DESY; EMBL; Federal Republic of Germany; HASYLAB; Synchrotron radiation

Indexed keywords

EID: 84933043985     PISSN: 19391811     EISSN: 1939182X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2015.45.3.447     Document Type: Review

References (147)

1. The word "parasitic" means that synchrotron radiation researchers used facilities that were built for other purposes and that their activities depended on particle physicists who defined the performance parameters for the machines used at the facility. "Parasitic" carries possibly negative connotations and is not the preferred expression for all actors and stakeholders at DESY and other accelerator laboratories. Nevertheless, it was used by many people involved at the time, even jokingly; see Olof Hallonsten, "The Parasites: Synchrotron Radiation at SLAC, 1972-1992," HSNS 45, no. 2 (2015): 217-72
2. Park Doing, Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron: Biology, Physics, and Change in Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009).
3. The second article will be published as Thomas Heinze, Olof Hallonsten, and Steffi Heinecke, "From Periphery to Center: Sychrotron Radiation at DESY, Part II: 1977-1993," HSNS 45, no. 4 (2015).
4. Claus Habfast, Großforschung mit kleinen Teilchen: DESY 1956-1970 (Heidelberg: SpringerVerlag, 1989).
5. Erich Lohrmann and Paul Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen und hellem Licht: 50 Jahre Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, 2nd ed. (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2013); the history of synchrotron radiation is covered on pp. 221-53 and partly on pp. 302-15.
6. Christof Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY: Anfänge (Private Print, 2012), available at DESY upon request.
7. Cathryn Carson, "Nuclear Energy Development in Postwar West Germany: Struggles over Cooperation in the Federal Republic's First Reactor Station," History and Technology 18 (2002): 233-70
8. Gerhard A. Ritter, Margit Szöllösi-Janze, and Helmuth Trischler, eds., Antworten auf die amerikanische Herausforderung. Forschung in der Bundesrepublik und der DDR in den "langen" siebziger Jahren (Frankfurt am Main: Campus-Verlag, 1999)
9. Peter Fischer, Atomenergie und staatliches Interesse. Die Anfänge der Atompolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1949-1955 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994)
10. Margit Szöllösi-Janze and Helmuth Trischler, eds., Großforschung in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Campus-Verlag, 1990)
11. Margit Szöllösi-Janze, Geschichte der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Großforschungseinrichtungen: 1958-1980 (Frankfurt am Main: CampusVerlag, 1990)
12. Wolfgang D. Müller, Geschichte der Kernenergie in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Anfänge und Weichenstellungen (Stuttgart: Schäffer Verlag, 1990), 304-30
13. Michael Eckert, "Die Anfänge der Atompolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland," Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 37 (1989): 115-43.
14. Olof Hallonsten and Thomas Heinze, "Institutional Persistence through Gradual Adaptation: Analysis of National Laboratories in the USA and Germany," SPP 39, no. 4 (2012): 450-63
15. Olof Hallonsten, "Growing Big Science in a Small Country: MAX-lab and the Swedish Research Policy System," HSNS 41, no. 2 (2011): 179-215
16. Catherine Westfall, "Surviving to Tell the Tale: Argonne's Intense Pulsed Neutron Source from an Ecosystem Perspective," HSNS 40, no. 3 (2010): 350-98
17. Catherine Westfall, "Institutional Persistence and the Material Transformation of the US National Laboratories: the Curious Story of the Advent of the Advanced Photon Source," SPP 39, no. 4 (2012): 439-49.
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19. Lilian Hoddeson, Adrienne Kolb, and Catherine Westfall, Fermilab: Physics, the Frontier & Megascience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 93-224, 312-34
20. Peter Westwick, The National Laboratories: Science in an American System 1947-1974 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 269-98.
21. Triple helix: Henry Etzkowitz, The Triple Helix: University-Government-Industry Innovation in Action (New York: Routledge, 2008)
22. Mode 1/Mode 2: Michael Gibbons et al., The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage, 1994)
23. Post-academic: John Ziman, Real Science: What It Is and What It Means (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
24. Post-modern: Paul Forman, "The Primacy of Science in Modernity, of Technology in Postmodernity, and of Ideology in the History of Technology," History and Technology 23 (2007): 1-152.
25. Hallonsten, "Parasites" (ref. 1)
26. Doing, Velvet Revolution (ref. 1).
27. Hallonsten, "Parasites" (ref. 1)
28. Cyrus C.M. Mody, Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy and the Path to Nanotechnology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011)
29. Harold Varmus, The Art and Politics of Science (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2009), 144-45
30. W. Patrick McCray, "Will Small be Beautiful? Making Policies for our Nanotech Future," History and Technology 21 (2005): 177-203
31. John Sulston and Georgina Ferry, The Common Thread: A Story of Science, Politics, Ethics and the Human Genome (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2002).
32. Heinze et al., "From Periphery to Center, Part II" (ref. 2).
33. James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen, "A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change," in Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, ed. James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1-37
34. Wolfgang Streeck, Re-Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
35. Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, "Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies," in Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies, ed. Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1-39
36. Kathleen Thelen, "How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical Analysis," in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 208-40
37. For a comparison of the four processes, see Thomas Heinze and Richard Münch, "Institutionelle Erneuerung der Forschung. Eine Analyse wissenschaftshistorischer Beispiele zur Transformation von Disziplinen und Forschungsorganisationen," in Wissenskulturen. Bedingungen wissenschaftlicher Innovation, ed. Harald Müller and Florian Eßer (Kassel: Kassel University Press, 2012), 19-41
38. Olof Hallonsten and Thomas Heinze, "From Particle Physics to Photon Science: Multidimensional and Multilevel Renewal at DESY and SLAC," SPP 40, no. 5 (2013): 591-603
39. Hallonsten and Heinze, "Institutional Persistence" (ref. 7).
40. The science budget in Western Germany doubled between 1962 and 1972; see Cathryn Carson, "Beyond Reconstruction: CERN's Second Generation Accelerator Program as an Indicator of Shifts in West German Science," in Physics and Politics: Research and Research Support in Twentieth Century Germany in International Perspective, ed. Helmuth Trischer and Mark Walker (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000), 107-30
41. see also Müller, "Geschichte der Kernenergie" (ref. 6), 315-16.
42. Doing, Velvet Revolution (ref. 1)
43. Hallonsten, "The Parasites" (ref. 1)
44. Hallonsten, "Growing Big Science" (ref. 7).
45. Lilian Hoddeson and Adrienne Kolb, "The Superconducting Super Collider's Frontier Outpost, 1983-1988," Minerva 38 (2000), 271-310, on 308.
46. Michael Riordan, "The Demise of the Superconducting Super Collider," Physics in Perspective 2 (2000): 411-25.
47. Hoddeson et al., Fermilab (ref. 8).
48. Catherine Westfall, "Surviving the Squeeze: National Laboratories in the 1970s and 1980s," HSNS 38, no. 4 (2008): 475-78
49. Florian Hars, "Wenn Forschung zu groß wird. Internationalisierung als Strategie nationaler Forschungsplanung am Beispiel der Hochenergiephysik" in Ritter et al., Antworten (ref. 6), 286-312.
50. Westfall, "Surviving" (ref. 22), 478.
51. Armin Hermann, John Krige, Ulrike Mersits, and Dominique Pestre, eds., History of CERN: Volume I-Launching the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1987), 388
52. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 2
53. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 3-8
54. Carson, "Nuclear Energy" (ref. 6)
55. Ritter et al., Antworten (ref. 6)
56. Fischer, Atomenergie (ref. 6)
57. Müller, Geschichte der Kernenergie (ref. 6)
58. Eckert, "Die Anfänge der Atompolitik" (ref. 6).
59. Cathryn Carson, "Heisenberg and the Framework of Science Policy," Fortschritte der Physik 50 (2002): 432-36.
60. Carson, "Beyond Reconstruction" (ref. 15)
61. Hermann et al., History of CERN (ref. 24).
62. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 3-8. GeV is the abbreviation of Giga electron volt, which is the unit for energy level in a particle accelerator. The energy level has some importance for the performance of accelerators for both particle physics and synchrotron radiation research, although several other parameters also affect the performance in both realms.
63. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 8-14
64. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 3-4
65. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 37-41.
66. Board of Directors, "Tätigkeitsbericht" (ref. 34), 8
67. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 57-66.
68. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 181-85.
69. Karl Witte, "Zur Geschichte des Physikalischen Staatsinstituts und der Physik in Hamburg," in 100 Jahre Physik in Hamburg, ed. Klaus Tornier (Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, 1985), 22-23.
70. See "The Creation of Hasylab, 1977-1981" in Heinze et al., "From Periphery to Center, Part II" (ref. 2).
71. Gustav Weber, "Peter Stähelin 65 Jahre alt," Physikalische Blätter 46, no. 1 (1990): 25.
72. Witte, "Zur Geschichte" (ref. 39), 24
73. Board of Directors, "Bericht des Direktoriums" (ref. 37), 7.
74. The title of Sonntag's PhD thesis is "Photoabsorption der Metalle Ti bis Cu für Phtotonenenergien zwischen 40 eV und 300 eV." Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 154.
75. DESY had three divisions in 1962-1963: Technische Leitung (Teucher), Verwaltung (Berghaus), and Experimente (Stähelin). Board of Directors, Bericht des Direktoriums (ref. 37)
76. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 324.
77. Keith Codling, "Atomic and Molecular Physics Using Synchrotron Radiation. The Early Years," Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 4 (1997): 316-33
78. David W. Lynch, "Tantalus, a 240 MeV Dedicated Source of Synchrotron Radiation, 1968-1986," Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 4 (1997): 334-43.
79. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 10-11.
80. Peter Stähelin, "Antrag auf Gewährung von Mitteln aus der Schwerpunktförderung der Weltraumforschung bei der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft," 17 Sep 1962, German Research Foundation, grant proposal within the core area of the space research program.
81. Mahoney and Thelen, Theory of Gradual Institutional Change (ref. 13)
82. Streeck and Thelen, Beyond Continuity (ref. 13)
83. Heinze and Münch, "Institutionelle Erneuerung" (ref. 13).
84. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 29
85. Before he joined Stähelin's group, Haensel had completed his diploma thesis in the group of Walter Rollwagen at LMU Munich. The bunker was soon informally called the "Haensel-Bunker"; Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 15-16.
86. The building of the "observation bunker" was first mentioned in 1963. Board of Directors, "Bericht des Direktoriums" (ref. 37), 39.
87. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 57.
88. Hallonsten, "Parasites" (ref. 1).
89. After 1967, Stähelin was involved in the foundation of a new faculty of computer sciences at Hamburg University, and later on he was also involved in the establishment of the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, the second university in Hamburg. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 21.
90. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), xv.
91. The first professorial position that had been funded by DESY since 1966 was that of Gustav Weber. Witte, "Zur Geschichte" (ref. 39), 24.
92. Jahresbericht DESY 1966, Annual Report DESY FY 1966, 1-1; Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 227-39.
93. Andrew Sessler and Edmund Wilson, Engines of Discovery: A Century of Particle Accelerators (New York: World Scientific Pub. Co., 2007), 81-83.
94. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 61-62.
95. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 246.
96. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 248.
97. Habfast, Großforschung (ref. 3), 251-53; JB DESY 1968 (ref. 76), 1-1; and Table 1 in the Appendix.
98. Manuel Cardona, Ulrich Bonse, Ruprecht Haensel, Gottfried Mülhaupt, Gerhard Noldeke, Hermann Pfisterer, Edward Schlag, and Wulf Steinmann, "Speicherringe für Synchrotronstrahlung," report on storage rings for synchrotron radiation, prepared for DESY (Hamburg, Jan 1977)
99. Cele Abad-Zapatero, "Notes of a Protein Crystallographer: Our Unsung Heroes," Structure 12, no. 4 (2004): 523-27, on 524 and 526.
100. John Krige, "The Birth of EMBO and the Difficult Road to EMBL," Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (2002): 547-64
101. Abad-Zapatero, "Notes" (ref. 83), 525.
102. Abad-Zapatero, "Notes" (ref. 83), 525.
103. John Barrington Leigh and Gerd Rosenbaum, "A Proposal for the EMBO Synchrotron Radiation Bunker at DESY Hamburg," 6 Oct 1971 (Heidelberg), Table 2.
104. European Science Foundation, Synchrotron Radiation: A Perspective View for Europe, report prepared for ESF (Strasbourg, 1977), 43; Cardona et al., "Speicherringe fur Synchrotronstrahlung," (ref. 79), 15-18; Sonntag, interview (ref. 18).
105. Klein, Kirste, and Küllmer, meeting, 26 Jul 1973, "Vermerk betreffend die Neuabgrenzung der Förderungszuständigkeit zwischen BMFT und DFG, hier auf dem Gebiet der Niederenergie-Kernphysik und Plasmaphysik," memo on the reassignment of funding responsibilities between the BMFT and DFG, here in the field of low energy nuclear physics and plasma physics, 22 Aug 1973 (Bonn-Bad Godesberg); Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 75.
106. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 76.
107. European Science Foundation, Synchrotron Radiation (ref. 95), 44.
108. Hans-Willy Hohn and Uwe Schimank, Konflikte und Gleichgewichte im Forschungssystem: Akteurkonstellationen und Entwicklungspfade in der staatlich finanzierten außeruniversitären Forschung (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1990), 252-72
109. Ingrid von Stumm, Kernfusionsforschung politische Steuerung und internationale Kooperation. Das Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP) 1969-1981 (Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 1999), 118-64
110. Helmuth Trischler, "Die 'amerikanische Herausforderung' in den 'langen' siebziger Jahren: Konzeptionelle Uberlegungen," in Ritter et al., Antworten (ref. 6), 11-18
111. Hallonsten and Heinze, "Institutional Persistence" (ref. 7), 453-56, 463.
112. Ernst E. Koch, Ruprecht Haensel, and Christof Kunz, "Proceedings of the IVth International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet Radiation Physics," 22-26 Jul 1974, in Fourth International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet Radiation Physics (Braunschweig: Pergamon-Vieweg)
113. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 84-86. In the same year, Ruprecht Haensel, the group leader of F41, who had coordinated the construction of the first beam observation bunker and its gradual extension, left DESY and became a professor in the Faculty of Physics at the University of Kiel. He was replaced by his deputy Christof Kunz. At the same time, Ernst-Eckard Koch assumed the new position of coordinator for synchrotron radiation experiments; see Board of Directors, "Beschlussfassungen des Direktoriums vom 25 Apr 1974," resolutions of the DIR, TOP 4. Haensel later became the founding director of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble in 1986 (serving until 1992), which is still the largest and most successful dedicated synchrotron source in Europe.
114. Board of Directors, "Niederschrift über die Beschlussfassungen des Direktoriums am 7 Nov 1977," minutes of the DIR resolutions; Jahresbericht DESY 1986, Annual Report DESY FY 1986, 13. On Materlik, see also Heinze et al., "From Periphery to Center, Part II" (ref. 2), FN 81.
115. Björn Wiik, quoted in Michael Riordan, The Hunting of the Quark: A True Story of Modern Physics (New York: Touchstone Books, 1987), 308
116. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 69.
117. Riordan, Hunting (ref. 109), 268-92
118. Peter Galison, Image & Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 538.
119. The term the "X-ray drought" was used to describe the very same situation at SLAC, where the SPEAR storage ring also had been designed to run at higher energies and produce radiation in the X-ray spectrum, which the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation project (SSRP) scientists desired to make use of, but where priorities also were reoriented to lower energies. See Hallonsten, "Parasites" (ref. 1).
120. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 91-92.
121. Herwig Schopper, interview by first author, 20 Feb 2014; Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 92-94.
122. Hans-Joachim Behrend, Ernst E. Koch, Christof Kunz, and Gottfried Mülhaupt, "Studie über die Verbesserung der experimentellen Möglichkeiten für Synchrotronstrahlungsexperimente am Deutschen Elektronen-Synchrotron," Internal DESY Report, Hamburg, 1976.
123. National Expert Committee for Synchrotron Radiation, "Protokoll der 6. Sitzung des Gutachterausschusses fur Experimente mit der Synchrotronstrahlung (GAfSS) am 22.10.1976," minutes of the 6th meeting of the GAfSS from 22 Oct 1976, 2; Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 106-7.
124. National Academy of Science, "An Assessment of the National Need for Facilities Dedicated to the Production of Synchrotron Radiation," report prepared by the National Academy of Science (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1976).
125. Cardona et al., "Speicherringe" (ref. 79), 5-7
126. A very similar position regarding the hegemonic position of the United States can be found in a report published by the European Science Foundation in the same year, European Science Foundation, Synchrotron Radiation (ref. 95), 68-70
127. Kunz, Synchrotronstrahlung bei DESY (ref. 5), 107-11.
128. Cardona et al., "Speicherringe" (ref. 79), 17-19.
129. Cardona et al., "Speicherringe" (ref. 79), 25-36
130. The 0.7 GeV machine was later built in West Berlin as BESSY; see Heinze et al., "From Periphery to Center, Part II" (ref. 2), FN 19.
131. Extended Scientific Council, "Niederschrift" (ref. 110), TOP 2.
132. Board of Directors, "Bericht des Direktoriums über die Zeit von Mai bis Oktober 1977," report of the DIR about the period from May to Oct 1977, 17.
133. Gottfried Mülhaupt, "Ein Kleinspeicherring als Zwischenspeicher für die Positronen Injektion nach PETRA," DESY Report H2-77/11 (Hamburg: DESY, 1977).
134. Extended Scientific Council, "Niederschrift" (ref. 110), TOP 5.
135. National Expert Committee for Synchrotron Radiation, "Protokoll" (ref. 119), 7-8.
136. Extended Scientific Council, "Niederschrift" (ref. 110), TOP 7. It is noteworthy that half a year later, the Scientific Council (not the Extended Scientific Council) revised this decision and recommended dedicated beam time only if experiments for the particle physics program would not be affected. Scientific Council, "Niederschrift der 47. Geschäftssitzung des Wissenschaftlichen Rates am 12 Dec 1977," minutes of the 47th meeting of the WissR, TOP 7.
137. Board of Directors, "Tätigkeitsbericht" (ref. 34), 4
138. Board of Directors, "Bericht des Direktoriums" (ref. 37), 5; JB DESY 1964 (ref. 50), 4; JB DESY 1965 (ref. 55), 5; JB DESY 1966 (ref. 67), 4; JB DESY 1967 (ref. 58), 3; JB DESY 1968 (ref. 76), 4; WJB DESY 1970 (ref. 80), 5.
139. Trute, Die Forschung (ref. 135), 575-76.
140. The Federal Research Ministry played a much more active role in other Big Science facilities, in particular the nuclear research centers in Karlsruhe and Jülich. However, since the 1970s, the Federal Research Ministry pulled out of directly steering these centers; this phenomenon is called Globalsteuerung (indirect control) in the science history literature on Big Science facilities in Western Germany; see Hohn and Schimank, Konflikte (ref. 103), 260-62
141. Szöllösi-Janze, Geschichte der Arbeitsgemeinschaft (ref. 6), 15, 88-94
142. Stumm, Kernfusionsforschung (ref 103), 124-35.
143. H. Gerke, H. Wiedemann, Björn Wiik, and Günter Wolf, "Ein Vorschlag, DORIS als ep Speicherring zu benutzen," proposal to use DORIS as an ep-storage ring, H-72/22 (Hamburg, 1972).
144. Lohrmann and Söding, Von schnellen Teilchen (ref. 4), 87.
145. Riordan, Hunting (ref. 109), 268-92
146. Hoddeson et al., Fermilab (ref. 8), 232.
147. Heinze et al., "From Periphery to Center, Part II" (ref. 2).