Background
Widerøe was born in Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1902 as a son of the mercantile agent Theodor Widerøe (1868–1947) and Carla Johanne Launer (1875–1971).
Widerøe was born in Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1902 as a son of the mercantile agent Theodor Widerøe (1868–1947) and Carla Johanne Launer (1875–1971).
By 16, he was interested in nitrogen atoms and in 1920 graduated from Halling Gymnasium. There he studied at the Technical University at Aachen, where he proposed a thesis in 1927 for an experimental betatron accelerator, incorporating the work of Swedish scientist Gustav Ising of 1924, which was not successful at first.
Realizing that for nuclear advances to occur electrical engineering needed to be improved, he decided to study electrical engineering in Oslo, and later physics in Karlsruhe, Germany. Betatron accelerator concept There he conceived the concept of electromagnetic induction to accelerate electrons, which became the basis of what would be known as betatron. This idea was to use a vortex field surrounding a magnetic field to accelerate electrons in a tube.
In 1924, he returned to Norway for a short time period, working in a locomotive facility of Norges Statsbaner, where he fulfilled his 72-day military service.
He went back to Germany in 1925. Thus, Widerøe instead built a linear accelerator prototype based on Isings proposal and made this the topic of his dissertation under Walter Rogowski.
In 1928, he relocated to Berlin and started building protective relays during his work at General Electric Company. Resonance accelerator From his betatron experiment, he developed further ideas of particle acceleration without the necessity of high voltage. The method was resonating particles with a radio frequency electric field to add energy to each traversal of the field
This experiment was successful and published in 1928, and became the progenitor of all high-energy particle accelerators.
Widerøe"s article was studied by Ernest Lawrence in the United States, and used as the basis for his creation of the cyclotron in 1929. Widerøe began collaborating with the Nazi German government following their election in Germany, where in 1943 he introduced the concept of colliding particles head-on to increase interaction energy and a storage ring device. His Norwegian citizenship was ultimately revoked for working with the Nazi government.
In 1946 he filed a patent in Norway for an accelerator based on synchronous acceleration.
He would go on to publish over 180 papers in scientific and engineering journals, and filed over 200 patent applications over his lifetime. In his later life he devoted much time to medicinal technology, focusing on cancer treatment, including developing megavolt radiation therapy technologies.
He would collaborate with European Organization of Nuclear Research beginning in 1952, lectured at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich in 1953, and collaborated at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in 1959 in Hamburg. Rolf Widerøe died on 11 October 1996 in Obersiggenthal, Switzerland.
Norwegian Academy of Science American Physical Society American Radium Society British Institute of Radiology Deutsche Röntgengesellschaft European Society for Radiation Therapy European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology European Society of Physics Naturforschende Gesellschaft Norwegian Society of Radiology Norwegian Society of Physics Schweizerische Physikalische Gesellschaft Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Radiobiologie Scandinavian Society for Medical Physics Society of Nuclear Medicine.
Norwegian Academy of Science
American Physical Society
American Radium Society
British Institute of Radiology
Deutsche Röntgengesellschaft
European Society for Radiation Therapy European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology
European Society of Physics
Naturforschende Gesellschaft
Norwegian Society of Radiology
Norwegian Society of Physics
Schweizerische Physikalische Gesellschaft
Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Radiobiologie
Scandinavian Society for Medical Physics
Society of Nuclear Medicine.