..thing is, I already got to use their er, 2.1 Gev/c ummm Bigger kinda 'spectrometer- (so hungry for glory as to accelerate any old thang on the Periodic Chart.)

But in earlier years. OK.. yeah.. there was that story I read/with pix of a guy not much older who had built a small cyclotron in his basement. What I recall firstly was
the "304TL" monster triode vacuum tube he used for the RF oscillator == mucho $$. Rich parents so ..skip doin that one.. ... :-/