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38 results

Page 1 of 2

Pions to Quarks
  • Particle Physics in the 1950s
  • Edited by Laurie Mark Brown, Max Dresden, Lillian Hoddeson
  • Published online:
    07 May 2010
    Print publication:
    24 November 1989
  • Editors Laurie Brown, Max Dresden and Lillian Hoddeson have assembled a prestigious group of physicists and historians of science to present a broadly balanced picture of this exciting scientific era that witnessed the coming of age of particle physics and its development into 'big science'. The historical studies and analyses provided in the volume are unique in their scope and level of detail. Major topics and developments addressed include the important experiments and their theoretical explanations, the design and construction of scientific instruments and the establishment of major research centres - especially the national laboratories that played a key role in the transformation of particle physics into 'big science'. These essays also range from sociological analyses of the particle physics subculture and the political aspects of research funding to discussions of symmetry and axiomatic field theory.

The Rise of the Standard Model
  • A History of Particle Physics from 1964 to 1979
  • Edited by Lillian Hoddeson, Laurie Brown, Michael Riordan, Max Dresden
  • Published online:
    03 February 2010
    Print publication:
    13 November 1997
  • Editors Laurie Brown, Max Dresden, Lillian Hoddeson and Michael Riordan have brought together a distinguished group of elementary particle physicists and historians of science to explore the recent history of particle physics. Based on a conference held at Stanford University, this is the third volume of a series recounting the history of particle physics and offers the most up-to-date account of the rise of the Standard Model, which explains the microstructure of the world in terms of quarks and leptons and their interactions. Major contributors include Steven Weinberg, Murray Gell-Mann, Michael Redhead, Silvan Schweber, Leon Lederman and John Heilbron. The wide-ranging articles explore the detailed scientific experiments, the institutional settings in which they took place, and the ways in which the many details of the puzzle fit together to account for the Standard Model.

  • 1 - The Rise of the Standard Model: 1964–1979

    • By Laurie M. Brown, Born 1923, New York City; Ph.D. (physics), Cornell University, 1951; theoretical physics and history of physics; Northwestern University., Michael Riordan, Born 1946, Springfield, Mass.; Ph.D. (physics), MIT, 1973; experimental physics, history of physics, and science writing; Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and University of California, Santa Cruz., Max Dresden, Born 1918, Amsterdam; Ph.D. (physics), University of Michigan, 1946; theoretical physics and history of physics; State University of New York at Stony Brook and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center., Lillian Hoddeson, Born 1940, New York City; Ph.D. (physics), Columbia University, 1966; history of science and technology; University of Illinois and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
  • Edited by Lillian Hoddeson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Laurie Brown, Northwestern University, Illinois, Michael Riordan, Stanford University, California, Max Dresden, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Rise of the Standard Model
    Published online:
    03 February 2010
    Print publication:
    13 November 1997, pp 3-35

  • Summary

    In the late 1970s elementary particle physicists began speaking of the “Standard Model” as the basic theory of matter. This theory is based on sets of fundamental spin-½ particles called “quarks” and “leptons,” which interact by exchanging generalized quanta, particles of spin 1. The model is referred to as “standard,” because it provides a theory of fundamental constituents – an ontological basis for describing the structure and behavior of all forms of matter (gravitation excepted), including atoms, nuclei, strange particles, and so on. In situations where appropriate mathematical techniques are available, it can be used to make quantitative predictions that are completely in accord with experiment. There are no well-established results in particle physics that clearly disagree with this theory.

    This pleasing state of affairs is quite new in particle physics. It contrasts markedly with the theoretical situation in the early 1960s, when there were a variety of different ideas about the subatomic realm. For example, in 1964 most particle physicists considered protons, neutrons, pions, kaons, and a host of other strongly interacting particles (i.e., hadrons) to be in a certain sense “elementary.” By 1979 the consensus had emerged that the hadrons were not elementary after all but are composed of more basic building blocks called quarks, held together by the exchange of another kind of particle called the gluon. Or consider the particle interactions. In 1964 almost all physicists thought the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions were independent phenomena, perhaps requiring different types of theories for their description.

  • IV - The new laboratory

  • Edited by Laurie Mark Brown, Max Dresden, Lillian Hoddeson
  • Book:
    Pions to Quarks
    Published online:
    07 May 2010
    Print publication:
    24 November 1989, pp 147-148

  • Summary

    It will cost a billion dollars, ten billion volts 'twill give,

    It will take five thousand scholars seven years to make it live …

    Take away your billion dollars, take away your tainted gold,

    You can keep your damn ten billion volts, my soul will not be sold.

    – © Arthur Roberts, “Take Away Your Billion Dollars” (also known as the Brookhaven National Anthem) (1946)

    By toil and sweat the Soviets have reached ten billion volts,

    Shall we downtrodden physicists submit? No, no – revolt!…

    Oh, if we outbuild the Russians, it will be because we spend

    Give, oh give those billion dollars, let them flow without an end.

    –© Arthur Roberts, “Ten Years Later” (1956)

    Don Glaser watched and wondered as the bubbles rose within,

    And said, how do those bubbles know just where they should begin?

    And once the crucial question framed, the answer too was slated

    Beneath our hero's onslaught fierce to be elucidated…

    The bubble chamber now is made of sterner stuff than beer,

    It's run by corporations huge on megabucks per year,

    The beam dumps pulse, the cameras click, the great computers chatter,

    Vast cohorts grind the answers out; some do, some do not matter…

    –© Arthur Roberts, “Birth of the Bubble Chamber,” (1956)

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