physics

Nan Phinney

Nan Phinney is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nan Phinney rather than just read about it. In short: Nan Phinney (born 1945) is a retired American accelerator physicist at SLAC. She was program coordinator for the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), the world's first linear collider.

Key takeaways

Nan Phinney belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nan Phinney to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nan Phinney from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nan Phinney (born 1945) is a retired American accelerator physicist at SLAC. She was program coordinator for the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), the world's first linear collider. Her research interests are high energy colliders and linear colliders. She became an American Physical Society Fellow in 1993. Her last job title at SLAC was distinguished staff scientist.

Early life and education Born in Chicago in 1945, Nan Phinney is the daughter of Thomas Ward Phinney, who trained as an electrical engineer, and Martha Louise (née Lawrence) Phinney. She is a granddaughter of photographer George R. Lawrence. The family lived on the north side of Chicago, where she attended Catholic grammar school and Catholic girls' high school. Phinney completed a Bachelor of Science in physics and astronomy in 1966 at Michigan State University. She earned an M.S. in 1968, and a Ph.D. in 1972, both degrees in high-energy physics at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Her dissertation was Trident Production in Coulomb Field, advised by John (Jack) Smith.

Career

Postdoctoral positions From 1972 through 1980, Phinney held post-doc positions from École Polytechnique and the University of Oxford, working at CERN on high-energy particle physics experiments. Initially she worked on the hyperon experiment on the Proton Synchrotron, but for most of her time at CERN she worked with the CERN, Columbia, Oxford, Rockefeller group in IR-1 of the Intersecting Storage Rings. The group studied wide-angle scattering, and Phinney's work was primarily data acquisition.

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

In 1981 Phinney was one of the first physicists hired to work on the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), the world's first linear collider. With technical expertise and leadership qualities, she became SLC program coordinator from 1990 to 1998. She led the effort "to make the accelerator perform — an enormous challenge that took constant effort", according to Burt Richter. Prof. David Burke said she "became an international spokesperson for the new technology as a result of her scientific expertise as well as her ability to talk to audiences ranging from scientists to government officials". In 2004 Phinney was elected chair of the Division of the Physics of Beams executive committee of the American Physical Society. She has served on the second International Linear Collider Technical Review Committee as well as the U.S. Linear Collider Steering Group Accelerator Task Force and the United Kingdom Linear Collider Machine Advisory Committee. According to Richter, she has brought "her hard-won wisdom and experience on linear colliders to the worldwide linear collider design efforts".

Awards and honors 1993 American Physical Society Fellow, cited "For her many contributions to the successful development and operation of the Stanford Linear Collider" 2003 Marsh O’Neill Award recipient, acknowledged for her "leadership qualities and technical ability" as program coordinator for the Stanford Linear Collider

Selected publications Phinney, Nan (2013). "7.2 the Only Linear Collider Built so Far: The SLC". In Brüning, Oliver; Myers, Stephen (eds.). Accelerators and Colliders. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 186–188. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23053-0_17. ISBN 9789814436403. Phinney, Nan (September 20, 2012), "SLC: The first linear collider", Challenges and Goals for Accelerators in the XXI Century, World Scientific, pp. 97–101, doi:10.1142/9789814436403_0005, ISBN 978-981-4436-39-7 Adolphsen, Chris; et al. (June 26, 2013). "The International Linear Collider Technical Design Report - Volume 3.I: Accelerator R&D in the Technical Design Phase". arXiv:1306.6353 [physics.acc-ph]. Adolphsen, Chris; et al. (June 26, 2013). "The International Linear Collider Technical Design Report - Volume 3.II: Accelerator Baseline Design". arXiv:1306.6328 [physics.acc-ph]. Phinney, Nan (2007). "ILC reference design report:Accelerator executive summary". ICFA Beam Dyn.Newslett. Retrieved May 15, 2021. Phinney, Nan (2001). "Next linear collider design status". 18th International Conference on High-Energy Accelerators (HEACC 2001). Phinney, Nan (October 2001). "SLC final performance and lessons". Linac. Proceedings, 20th International Conference, Linac 2000, Monterey, U.S., August 21–25, 2000.: 1, 2. Phinney, N. (February 5, 1992). "SLC performance and plans". AIP Conference Proceedings. 272 (2): 1971–1978. Bibcode:1992AIPC..272.1971P. doi:10.1063/1.43471. ISSN 0094-243X. Phinney, Nan (1994). "The Heart of a new machine". SLAC Beam Line. 24N2: 2. Phinney, Nan (August 1992). "Review of SLC performance". Proceedings, 26th International Conference on High-energy Physics (ICHEP 92): Dallas, Texas: 1971–1978. Phinney, Nan (1985). "Report on the SLC Control System" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. 32 (5): 2117–2119. Bibcode:1985ITNS...32.2117P. doi:10.1109/TNS.1985.4333834.

References

External links Official website Nan Phinney Symposium, 2018 Oral history interview transcript with Nan Phinney on 16 July 2020, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nan Phinney

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nan Phinney claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nan Phinney before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nan Phinney ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nan Phinney

In research: Nan Phinney appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nan Phinney in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nan Phinney is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1945 births, 20th-century American physicists, 20th-century American women physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nan Phinney outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nan Phinney in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nan Phinney means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nan Phinney out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nan Phinney in simple terms?

Nan Phinney (born 1945) is a retired American accelerator physicist at SLAC. She was program coordinator for the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), the world's first linear collider.

Why does Nan Phinney matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nan Phinney?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nan Phinney.