In the summer of 1986 I left Stanford University, after 26 years on the faculty, to assume the job of Scientific Director at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) now known as the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF). This facility, funded by the Department of Energy and located in Newport News, Virginia provides a high-energy, high-intensity, high-duty-factor electron accelerator for studying the internal structure of nuclei and nucleons. It has long been a top priority for the field of nuclear physics in the United States. Each year I gave a physics lecture series at the site. The initial series on electron scattering was based on a set of lectures I had given at Argonne National Laboratory in the winter of 1982–1983. As Scientific Director, I was continually called upon to make presentations on this topic. This book is based both on the lecture series on electron scattering, and on the many presentations I have given on this subject over the years.

The scattering of high-energy electrons from nuclear and nucleon targets essentially provides a microscope for examining the structure of these tiny objects. The best evidence we have on what nuclei and nucleons actually look like comes from electron scattering. An intense continuous electron beam with well-defined energy provides a powerful tool for structure investigations. Inclusive experiments, where only the final electron is detected, examine static and transition charge and current densities in the target. Coincidence experiments, where other particles are detected together with the scattered electron, provide valuable additional information.

In electron scattering experiments where the momentum of the initial and final electron are well-defined, a virtual quantum of electromagnetic radiation is produced which interacts with the target.