From the neutron to three light neutrino species: Some highlights from sixty years of particle physics
I consider the beginning to modern particle physics to be in 1932--33, when James Chadwick discovered the neutron at Cambridge, England, and Carl Anderson discovered the positron in Pasadena, California. I leave out the discoveries of the electron by J. J. Thomson, the nucleus and the proton by Ernest Rutherford, as well as the photon introduced by Albert Einstein and the neutrino as hypothesized by Wolfgang Pauli, as having occurred before my time.'' I was thus able to follow -- and sometimes participate in -- all the developments of modern particle physics. The story I will tell is as the unfolding of the field looked; to me -- an experimental particle physicists. As with Rashomon, this is as I see it. To get a different point of view, and no doubt there are many, you need different observer. One might ask, what did I know about physics in the 1930s, anyway It so happens that I did hear abut Chadwick's discovery at the time, mainly because my brother Maurice was working with him in 1934 on the photo-disintegration of the deuteron, and on the first good measurement of the neutron mass. I will concentrate on the thirty years, 1930 to 1960 which includes Dick Dalitz' important early contributions. I will then skip most of the next thirty years for lack of time, and end up with the study of the Z{sup 0} in e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} annihilation. For more details, and explicit references to published papers, I will refer the reader to a recent book by Robert Cahn and myself.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 6513355
- Report Number(s):
- LBL-29405; CONF-9007173-1; ON: DE91000168
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Dalitz conference, Oxford (United Kingdom), 5 Jul 1990
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
HISTORICAL ASPECTS
Z NEUTRAL BOSONS
DALITZ PLOT
ELECTRON-POSITRON INTERACTIONS
NEUTRINOS
P INVARIANCE
BOSONS
DIAGRAMS
FERMIONS
INTERACTIONS
INTERMEDIATE BOSONS
INTERMEDIATE VECTOR BOSONS
INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES
LEPTON-LEPTON INTERACTIONS
LEPTONS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
PARTICLE INTERACTIONS
SCATTERPLOTS
645000* - High Energy Physics