Timeline of particle physics technology * 1896 - Charles Wilson discovers that energetic particles produce droplet tracks in supersaturated gases * 1897-1901 - Discovery of the Townsend discharge by John Sealy Townsend * 1908 - Hans Geiger and Ernest Rutherford use the Townsend discharge principle to detect alpha particles. * 1911 - Charles Wilson finishes a sophisticated cloud chamber * 1928 - Hans Geiger and Walther Muller invent the Geiger Muller tube, which is based upon the gas ionisation principle used by Geiger in 1908, but is a practical device that can also detect beta and gamma radiation. This is implicitly also the invention of the Geiger Muller counter. * 1934 - Ernest Lawrence and invent the cyclotron * 1945 - Edwin McMillan devises a synchrotron * 1952 - Donald Glase