The main outcome of the meeting was to introduce Thomson to the wirbelrohr, a new type of particle accelerator built in 1944 in Germany. The wirbelrohr used a cyclotron -like arrangement to accelerate the electrons in a plasma, which its designer, Max Steenbeck, believed would cause them to "break away" from the ions and accelerate to very high speeds. The parallels between this device and Thomson's concept were obvious, but Steenbeck's acceleration mechanism was novel and presented a potentially more efficient heating system.