Overview, history and concepts

The progress in nuclear and particle physics is based on the development of detectors that allow us to observe particles and radiation. This chapter gives an historic overview of the development and the employment of detectors. It is pointed out how this led to scientific discoveries and how, on the other hand, the developments in other fields, in particular in electronics, widened the potential of today’s detectors. Examples of typical detector concepts for experiments in particle and astroparticle physics are given and applications in other areas are pointed out. In a short section the ‘natural units’ (ℏ = c = 1), often used in particle physics, are defined and relativistic particle kinematics is introduced. The chapter finishes with an overview of the content of the book.