 To obtain funding for the 60 @-@ inch ( 150 cm ) cyclotron that he wanted , Oliphant wrote to the prime minister , Neville Chamberlain , who was from Birmingham . Chamberlain took up the matter with his friend Lord Nuffield , who provided £ 60 @,@ 000 ( equivalent to AUD $ 5 @,@ 000 @,@ 000 in 2010 ) for the project , enough for the cyclotron , a brand new building to house it , and a trip to Berkeley , California , so Oliphant could confer with Ernest Lawrence , the inventor of the cyclotron . Lawrence was supportive of the project , sending Oliphant the plans of the 60 @-@ inch cyclotron that he had under construction at Berkeley , and inviting Oliphant to visit him at the Radiation Laboratory . Oliphant sailed for New York on 10 December 1938 , and met Lawrence in Berkeley . The two men got along very well , dining at Trader Vic 's in Oakland . Oliphant was aware of the problems in building cyclotrons encountered by Chadwick at the University of Liverpool and Cockcroft at the Cavendish Laboratory , and intended to avoid these and get his cyclotron built on time and on budget by following Lawrence 's specifications as closely as possible . He hoped that it would be running by Christmas 1939 , but the outbreak of the Second World War quashed his hopes . The Nuffield Cyclotron would not be completed until after the war . 
