There are more than ten thousand particle accelerators in the world from the linear accelerators used for cancer therapy in modern hospitals to the giant 'atom-smashers' at international particle physics laboratories used to unlock the secrets of creation. Many scientists and engineers spend their lives designing, constructing, and operating these machines - yet few universities include the subject of particle accelerators in their curricula. The few courses that do exist and the summer schools run by the big accelerator laboratories lack a simple introduction which covers the essentials of...