This 1950 William Vandivert photo, taken for an article on "Supervoltage Machines," looks almost more like a painting than a photograph.
Invented by Robert Van de Graaff, the 2,700,000-electron-volt generator pictured in its M.I.T. Lab, according to the magazine article,"symbolizes man's great effort to crack the riddle of the atom."
NEXT: Ralph Steiner, 1950