Bookshelf (H. Wade Patterson and Ralph H. Thomas, editors; 'A History of Accelerator Radiation Protection')

This book is a collection of contributions on the history of accelerator radiation protection by people who have worked or still work in this field at particle accelerators around the world. The radiation environment of these machines is the most complex man-made radiation field one could face. In fact, protection efforts must cover a large spectrum of particles and energies ranging from thermal, in the case of neutrons, to the primary energy of the accelerator. Therefore the correct assessment of the exposure risk for people working in such stray radiation fields is a theme of many of the articles. The editors deliberately refrained from guiding the authors' styles, so the book contains a collection of papers ranging from articles with literary ambitions to dry accounts on radiation protection efforts around a particular accelerator complex. Although this retains the originality of the individual contributions, one would have liked to see a somewhat more anecdotal/historical approach rather than concentrating on scientific depth. Considering the types and energies of the radiations involved another outstanding and reoccurring issue is the question of accelerator shielding, where correct answers require considerable experimental and calculational efforts. While no shielding (it has happened!) proved to be bad, overshielding never turned out to be a problem in view of the increase in intensities that older machines have gone on to achieve. Is this a book only for the few radiation protection specialists working in an accelerator environment? Not necessarily. The physics aspects of radiation protection (generally called health physics in the US) is always evident and makes many articles interesting to read even for the non-specialist. The editors' epilogue proudly claims that most health physicists working around accelerators regard themselves as the elite of their profession. On the other hand the statement made by one eminent colleague - ''that health physics became a little less physics and a little more metaphysics'' - cannot be ignored.