by Fred M Asner, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0 19 851764 5 (£55).
Fred Asner traces the discovery and understanding of superconductivity. This includes the development and manufacture of semiconducting materials, the cooling of superconducting magnets and their control. Asner looks at beam dynamics and winding configurations specific to accelerator magnets and discusses their design principles using examples from recent major projects. All of these magnets have to work under extreme conditions. It is stressed that the design criteria are not to be taken lightly. One chapter is dedicated to particle physics detectors and superconducting magnets for medical applications. Both are major growth areas.
