{"id":71,"date":"1976-06-25T13:15:00","date_gmt":"1976-06-25T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/?p=71"},"modified":"2023-03-07T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T20:50:43","slug":"j-reginald-richardsons-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"J. Reginald Richardson’s Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
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J. Reginald Richardson: he
\nwas born on the Prairie and raised by the Sea;
\nbut it was down South in the Land of the Free
\nthat he learned the fine art of knob-twiddlery.<\/p>\n

At Berkeley and later at UCLA,
\ndevices with dials would all do as he’d say.
\nThe technique that he used is known to this day
\nas the J. Reginald Richardson Way.<\/p>\n

They say that all hell on wheels knew the fame
\nof J. Reginald Richardson’s name.
\nHis skill would put Mario Andretti to shame.
\nWhen he’d passed, no highway was ever the same.<\/p>\n

He laboured with Alvarez after school
\non a monstrous Linac to generate fuel.
\nThey tell me that Luis is nobody’s fool;
\nwas this the exception that proves the rule?<\/p>\n

Now, every great twiddler needs a rest,
\nand Canada’s version of far Southwest
\nsuits J. Reginald Richardson best,
\nso he made himself Galliano’s guest.<\/p>\n

He set out one day on that sea-circled mound:
\nafter walking and thinking for some time, he found
\nhe was back where he started. He shouted, “Zounds!
\nAn accelerator ought to be round<\/span>!”<\/p>\n

“Furthermore, clearly it seems only right
\nthat problems with pushing the speed of light
\nshould not interfere with the time of flight \u2014
\nan isochronous path is a classic delight!<\/p>\n

“The problem is, protons are hard to extract…
\nBut only when they are injected intact!
\nIf a couple of negative charges were packed
\non the outside, this case could be easily cracked.”<\/p>\n

Inspired, he sat down and drew up a design:
\nextraction consisted of changing the sign;
\nisochronous magnets would work just fine,
\nsince at stripping the energy would be defined.<\/p>\n

By this time the notion was well on its way
\ninto history still being written today.
\nBut first Reg had a few dues to pay,
\nso he carried it back to UCLA.<\/p>\n

Now, ‘way down South in the U.S. of A.,
\nthings are done in a different way:
\nonly once; always big; always, some say,
\nto guarantee citizens taxes to pay.<\/p>\n

Lord Bethe declared that no sane man would dream
\nof a polarized negative hydrogen beam,
\nand Clinton P. Anderson’s eye did gleam.
\nOh, together they made a formidable team.<\/p>\n

So our hero went down to defeat and dismay.
\nBut never did Reginald Richardson say
\nhe was finished; a new Task Force saved the day,
\nreturning the concept to where it would stay.<\/p>\n

They re-thought that “minimum energy” stuff:
\npersuading electrons never to slough
\nat close to a GeV is tough!
\nMaybe one pi at a time was enough.<\/p>\n

Erich and Reginald collaborated.
\nThe concept was carefully masticated.
\nThen Erich, Ed, John, and others persuaded
\nfar Ottowa that Meson Physics was fated.<\/p>\n

Support from the three Universities won
\nthe funding from Eastern Establishment dons,
\nso TRIUMF rushed in where no Angeles had gone:
\nan isochronous H–<\/sup> cyclotron.<\/p>\n

There followed a few years of struggle and sweat
\ninto which Reg cleverly didn’t get.
\nWhen it looked like the challenge was going to be met,
\nhe added five years of his life to the bet.<\/p>\n

Soon after arriving, he plainly could see
\nthat some major components were NFG.
\nBut the Destructive Testing Task Force would see
\nto getting a brand new Transformer for free.<\/p>\n

And Heaven forbid, had an angry mob
\nmade Magnet Shimming a Union job,
\nJ. Reginald Richardson sobs
\nto think of how far he would be from his knobs.<\/p>\n

A tale I am told, though I’d rather not quote,
\nthat when Socialist notions were rocking the boat
\nJ. Reginald Richardson smote
\nthe gavel, and cried, “There will be<\/b> no vote!”<\/p>\n

(I imagine then Erich awoke with a grin
\nfrom a dream which he’d been Henry Kissinger in
\nand sat up and spoke through the noise and the din,
\n“This sounds like the good part; I think I’ll join in!”)<\/p>\n

When TRIUMF was only beginning to get
\nthe first beam, Experiments got their feet wet
\nand J. Reginald Richardson met
\nhis greatest annoyance and obstacle yet.<\/p>\n

When our plans were beset with “a few minor flaws”
\nand came to a sudden impasse just because
\nof attempting to violate physical laws,
\nwhy, we blamed it all on the Beam and the Boss.<\/p>\n

And when budgets came out, there was always a fuss
\nIn a disgruntled chorus we’d mutter and cuss
\nthat J. Reginald Richardson was
\na spendthrift with other guys, stingy with us.<\/p>\n

But the truth should be known (if you haven’t all guessed),
\nthat some would have been less incensed and obsessed
\nhad J. Reginald Richardson blessed
\nmesons a bit more, and nucleons less.<\/p>\n

So right from the start he was under the gun,
\nbut he stuck to the task through frustration and fun,
\nand now it’s all over, the struggle is done,
\nand J. Reginald Richardson . . .
\nwon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s all over now… or so it would seem;
\nyet I hear of a Galliano scheme:
\na Task Force for Remote Control of the Beam
\nof J. Reginald Richardson’s Dream.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Provenance:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Written for the occasion of Reg Richardson’s retirement as the second Director of TRIUMF, 25 June 1976.\u00a0 There are of course a lot of “in jokes”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  J. Reginald Richardson: he was born on the Prairie and raised by the Sea; but it was down South in the Land of the Free that he learned the fine art of knob-twiddlery. At Berkeley and later at UCLA, devices with dials would all do as he’d say. TheRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1974-1979","category-occasional"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}