1957: the first accelerator begins operation

The 600 MeV Synchrocyclotron (SC), built in 1957, was CERN’s first accelerator and it provided beams for CERN’s first particle and nuclear physics experiments. In 1964, the Synchrocyclotron started to concentrate on nuclear physics alone, leaving particle physics to the newer and much more powerful Proton Synchrotron (PS).

Thanks to this move, the SC became a remarkably long-lived machine. In 1967, it started supplying beams for a dedicated unstable ion facility called ISOLDE, which carries out research ranging from pure nuclear physics to astrophysics and medical physics. In 1990, ISOLDE was transferred to a different accelerator, and the SC closed down after 33 years of service.