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History of the Weak Interactions by T. D fore been at a conference where tion of the Schrôdinger equation), Computational Physics library is so many developing countries had turbulence, function minimization enormous. And there is network­ been represented, and it clearly (for protein folding, spin glasses, ing, which both solves and intro­ came as a surprise to him and oth­ etc.), quantum field theory, and duces many problems, but does ers that it was not only possible stellar evolution. The difference in not obviate the need for centres to carry on computational physics the time-, length-, and energy- of excellence. research in such places, but that scales is impressive. The economic aspects of the it was being done actively. The Communications issues are also research cannot be neglected. The obvious conclusion is that this very important. The usual language future of Computational Physics enormous source of intellectual of Computational Physics, Fortran, will depend on how we interact potential cannot be neglected. has long been recognized as inad­ with the larger scientific computing Ken Wilson's summary talk cov­ equate in many respects, especially market, which has a huge industrial ered the major outstanding issues as a vehicle for explaining what a base representing about $ 10 bil­ for computational science as he program is expected to do. Yet lion per year, and is truly inter­ saw them and as they were none of the many other languages national. With the technology ad­ brought out at the conference. His has had widespread acceptance. vancing rapidly on many fronts, first point was: what is quality There are other important as­ the prospects for Computational research? Or, equivalently, what pects of the publication issue: Physics are apparently limited only research will still be respected four Where should new papers be pub­ by our own skill and imagination. centuries from now? lished, where and how should pro­ The great algorithmic challenges grams be published? The list of By Fred James remain : electronic structure (solu­ journals needed for a complete At the 'Jackfest' marking the History of the weak 65th birthday of Jack Stein- berger (see July/August 1986 issue, page 29), T. D. interactions by T. D. Lee Lee gave an account of the history of the weak interac­ tions. Lee was a graduate In 1898 Rutherford discovered people on my track. I have to pub­ student with Steinberger un­ that the so-called Becquerel ray lish my present work as rapidly as der Enrico Fermi in Chicago actually consisted of two distinct possible in order to keep in the from 1946, and went on to types of radiation : one that is read­ race. The best sprinters in this win the 1957 Nobel Physics ily absorbed which he called alpha road of investigation are Becquerel Prize with C. N. Yang for their radiation, and another of a more and the Curies../ Rutherford's pre­ suggestion that the weak penetrating character which he dicament is very much shared by interaction does not conserve called beta radiation. Then, in us to this day. parity (mirror symmetry). This 1900, the Curies measured the Soon even more runners ap­ edited version * omits some electric charge of the beta particle peared : Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, of Lee 's tributes to Steinber­ and found it to be negative. That, William Wilson, von Baeyer, John ger, but retains the impres­ at the turn of the century, began Chadwick, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang sive insight into the subtleties the history of the weak nuclear Pauli, Enrico Fermi, Charles Ellis, of a key area of modern phy­ interaction. From the very start George Uhlenbeck, and many oth­ sics by one who played a the road of discovery was tor­ ers. We know that to reach where vital role in its development. tuous, and the competition intense. we are today took nearly a whole A letter written by Rutherford century and a large cast of illus­ to his mother expressed the spirit trious physicists. Yet probably any * The full version is available as a 'Yellow of research at that time: 'I have Report' No. 86-07 from CERN Scientific modern physicist is only three Information Service. to keep going, as there are always handshakes away from these pio- CERN Courier, January/February 1987 7 T. D. Lee (left) and Jack Steinberger — two lucky breaks. (Photo CERN) question concerning the origin of the continuous spectrum. She rea­ soned that a nucleus, presumably quantized, should not emit elec­ trons of varying energy. Could it be that the observed inhomogene- ity was introduced after the expul­ sion of the electron from the nu­ cleus? A series of experiments by Ellis and others quickly established that this is not the case. This then led to Bohr's suggestion that per­ haps energy was not conserved in beta decay. Pauli countered this by formulating the neutrino hypo­ thesis. Fermi then followed with his celebrated theory of beta de­ cay. This in turn stimulated further investigation on the spectrum shape, which did not agree with Fermi's theoretical prediction. This led to other ideas, and the confu­ sion was only cleared up complete­ ly after World War II, in 1949, by neers (for some perhaps only two) found that because she was a wo­ C. S. Wu and R. D. Albert. — you shake Jack Steinberger's man she could only work at hand, which shook Fermi's hand, Planck's institute in the basement, which shook all those other hands. and only go in and out through the New horizons (1949-1953) In the mid-1960s, Lise Meitner servants' entrance. At that time, came to New York and I had lunch Otto Hahn had his laboratory in an In 1946, the pion was not with her at a restaurant near Co­ old carpenter's shop. Lise Meitner known. Fermi and Edward Teller lumbia. When K. K. Darrow joined decided to join him and to become had just completed their theoretical us, Meitner said 'It's wonderful to an experimentalist. For the next analysis of the important experi­ see young people.' To appreciate thirty years, their joint work shaped ment of M. Conversi, E. Pancini this comment, you must realize the course of modern physics. and 0. Piccioni. I attended a sem­ that Darrow was one of the earliest In 1908 they found that the ab­ inar by Fermi on this work. Where members of the American Physical sorption of beta particles through he arrived at the conclusion that Society and at that lunch he was matter followed an exponential the 'mesotron' (the observed par­ over 70. But Lise Meitner was near law. From that they concluded ticle) could not possibly be the 90. I was quite surprised when beta rays are of unique energy. It carrier of strong forces hypothe­ she told me how she started her was Wilson, in 1909, who drew sized by Yukawa. Fermi's lectures first postdoctoral job in theory an opposite conclusion that the were always superb, but that one with Boltzmann, a contemporary beta rays are heterogeneous in to me, a young man not yet twenty of Maxwell. That shows us how energy. But soon Hahn and von and fresh from China, was abso­ recent even the classical period of Baeyer found line spectra, which lutely electrifying. our profession is. again confused the issue. This was One lucky break in my life was After Boltzmann's unfortunate cleared up by Chadwick in 1914, to have Jack Steinberger as a fel­ death in 1906, Meitner had to find who established the continuous low student at Chicago, because another job. She said she was beta spectrum. he told us that the muon decays grateful that Planck invited her to With the advent of quantum the­ into an electron and two neutrinos. Berlin. However, upon arrival, she ory, Meitner, in 1922, raised the This made it look very much like 8 CERN Courier, January/February 1987 C. N. Yang — violating mirror symmetry. (Photo CERN) any other beta decay, and stimu­ lated M. Rosenbluth, C. N. Yang and myself to launch a systematic investigation. Are there other in­ teractions, besides beta decay, that could be described by Fermi's theory? We found that muon decay and capture resembled beta decay. This began the 'universal Fermi interaction'. We then went on to speculate that, in analogy with electromagnetic forces, the basic weak interaction could be carried by a universal coupling through an intermediate heavy boson which I later called W± for weak. Naturally we went to Enrico Fermi and told him of our discov­ eries. He was extremely encourag­ ing. With his usual deep insight, he immediately recognized the further implications beyond our results. He put forward the prob­ lem that if this is to be the univer­ is never changed through the emis­ was never published. The full sig­ sal interaction, then there must be sion and absorption of a photon; nificance of these conservation reasons why some pairs of fer­ as for the weak interaction, why laws was not realized until years mions should have such interac­ should one bother to introduce a later. While this might be the first tions, and some pairs should not. long list of mysterious numbers, time that I failed to recognize a For example, why does the proton when all one needs is to say that great idea in physics when it was not decay into a positron and a only a few combinations can have presented to me, unfortunately it photon, or into a positron and two interactions with the intermediate did not turn out to be the last. neutrinos? boson. (Little did I expect that soon In the early fifties, extensive ef­ A few days later, he told us that there would be many others.) forts were made to determine the he had found the answer; he then Most discoveries in physics are space-time transformation proper­ proceeded to assign various sets made because the time is ripe.
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