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our 6409 answers by or search term  Who invented the Van de
Graaff generator? When was the Van de Graaff generator invented?
- Amenda (age 14) Ozona, Tx Hi Amenda,  I went ahead and
combined both of your questions into one.  The answer to your
first question is very easy! The Van de Graaff generator was
invented by Robert Jemison Van de Graaff who was born in 1901
and died in 1967.  After hearing about Ernest Rutherford's work
in Nuclear Physics, Van de Graaf began trying to find a way to
accelerate particles to very high speeds in order to
disintegrating atomic nuclei. The Van de Graaff generator was
officially invented in 1929 when he came up with the idea of
making a long tube and creating a big difference in charge at
two ends of the tube. The particles he was trying to accelerate
would start at one end of the tube, see that they were near a
bunch of other charges just like them