 When Massey took over the Physics Department , most of his physicists , including Bates , Buckingham , Burhop and Robert Boyd , moved with him . Like the Mathematics Department , it was still in temporary accommodation owing to bomb damage during the war . A new building was under construction , but to develop the technical infrastructure , Massey hired Harry Tomlinson , who had worked for him in the British Mission in Berkeley . The Department acquired several accelerators , including a 20 MeV synchrotron from the Atomic Energy Authority . Dick Jennings and Franz Heymann built two <unk> . Under Massey , the Physics Department moved away from researching the physics of metals and liquids , and focused on particle physics and upper atmosphere physics . Massey saw the potential of computers . He arranged with Andrew Booth for a copy of his All Purpose Electronic Computer , and recruited two programmers , Joan Lawson and Jane Wallace . When the University of London established a computing unit , Buckingham left to head it . 
