A Palette of Particles

A Palette of Particles
JeremyBernstein
Te Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Cambridge,Massachusetts
London,England / :o:,
Copyright:o:,by
thePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Bernstein,Jeremy,::
Apaletteofparticles/JeremyBernstein.
pages cm
Includesindex.
ISBN,8-o-o,-o,:,:-o(alk.paper)
:. Particles(Nuclearphysics)Popularworks. I. Title.
QC,,.:o.B, :o:,
,,.,':dc:, :o::o,:8:
BookdesignbyDeanBornstein
Contents
Introduction :
I. PrimaryColors
:.TeNeutron
:.TeNeutrino ,o
,.TeElectronandthePhoton o
II. SecondaryColors
.TePionandtheMuon o:
,.TeAntiparticle ,o
o.StrangeParticles ,8
,.TeQuark
III. Pastels
8.TeHiggsBoson ::,
.NeutrinoCosmology :o
:o.Squarks,Tachyons,
andtheGraviton :,:
LEnvoi :o
Appendix::Accelerators
andDetectors :,:
vi co1i1s
Appendix::GrandUnifcation :8o
Appendix,:NeutrinoOscillations ::
Acknowledgments :
Index :o:
A Palette of Particles
:
Introduction
I have been exposed to the physics of elementary
particlesforoverahalfcentury.Teseparticlesnow
appeartomeascolorsinapalettethatcanbeused
to compose the tableau of the universe. Tere are
whatIwouldcalltheprimarycolors:theparticles
neededtodescribetheaspectsoftheuniversethat
areaccessiblewithouttheuseoftoolssuchasvery
high- energyacceleratorsorcosmicraydetectors.In
thislistIincludetheelectron,thequantumoflight
(known as the photon), the neutron, the proton,
and,mostexotically,theneutrino.Iamalsowilling
toincludetheirantiparticles,althoughmostofthese
are not accessible without advanced technology.
Tiswasthesetthatwasinplayuntilthe:,os.At
this time a new set of particles appeared, either
in themindsoftheoristsorunexpectedlyinexper-
iments. An example was what came to be called
pi- mesonsandlaterpions.Tey wereatheoretical
suggestion of a Japanese physicist named Hideki
Yukawa,aboutwhomwewillhearlater.Initiallyit
: i1vouUc1io
wasthoughtthattheyhadbeendiscoveredincosmic
radiation radiationfromextraterrestrialsources
but it turned out that what had been discovered
were not Yukawas particles but mu-mesons (now
calledmuons),whichareheavy,unstableelectrons.
Before physicists could resolve the matter and re-
sume the search for Yukawas particle, however,
WorldWarIIintervened.
Upon returning from the war, the physicists
resumed their ordinary research, discovering a
plethoraofnew,unexpectedlystrangeparticlesei-
therincosmicraysorinthecollisionsproducedin
the new, very high- energy accelerators. Tese in-
cluded particles such as the K-meson and what
might loosely be described as heavy neutrons and
protons particles such as the so- called lambda
andsigmaparticles.Teyseemedtohavenorhyme
orreasonuntilMurrayGell- Mannproposedanor-
der and eventually the components that he called
quarks.Terearenowdozensanddozensofthese
strangeobjects.Lastly,thereistheHiggsboson,the
existence of which appears to be confrmed in the
experiments being done at CERNs Large Hadron
Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. Tis particle is
i1vouUc1io ,
thought to be the source of the masses of at least
someoftheothers.
Tischronologyexplainstheorderofthebook.
I beginwithchaptersontheprimarycolors.TenI
turn to the secondaries and fnally to the exotics.
I hopeineachchaptertogivesomepiquantbitsof
history.Iwaswitnesstothepostwardevelopments,
so I bring in an occasional personal observation.
Part of the material in this book was previously
publishedinAmerican Scientist,andhencethelevel
is attuned to a general reader with an interest in
science.
Before I begin, let me make a general observa-
tion. None of the particles we shall discuss can be
seenwithamicroscope,tosaynothingofthenaked
eye. Te quark, if present ideas are correct, can
neverbeobservedbyanymeansasafreeparticle.
In this sense these particles are abstractions. We
deducetheirexistencefromthingswecansee.For
example, we can see the track a charged particle
makesinadetectorbecausethesetracksaremacro-
scopic manifestations. Only afer a chain of theo-
retical arguments are we persuaded that what we
areobservinghasbeenmadebyaninvisibleobject.
i1vouUc1io
TepointIwanttomakeisthatthisconnectionis
notnew.Attheendofthenineteenthcenturythere
wasadebateabouttheexistenceofatoms.Noone
doubted the chemists atom, because its physical
properties were largely irrelevant; it was merely a
symbol that helped keep track of chemical reac-
tions. But many physicists at the time actually
insisted that the atom was real. Termodynamic
parameters such as heat, they said, were a mani-
festation of the motion of unobserved molecules.
Tis accounted for the laws of thermodynamics.
But there were skeptics, including the Austrian
physicist-philosopher Ernst Mach. Mach argued
that the laws of thermodynamics did not need an
explanation, above all by invoking the actions of
these abstract objects. To people who challenged
him about the existence of atoms, he would say,
Have you seen one: Nothing could change his
mind.Onewonderswhathewouldhavesaidabout
photographs that apparently show single atoms.
Still, we have no photograph that shows a single
neutron, let alone the more exotic particles in our
palette.Weaccepttheirexistencebecauseitexplains
whatwedosee.Asweproceedwewillseehowthis
works.
i1vouUc1io ,
As I mentioned, the more recently discovered
particlesaremoreandmoreabstract. Tey are not
needed to explain what goes on around us unless
we happen to be in a high-energy physics labora-
tory.Tediscoveryoftheirpropertieshasbecome
moreandmoreexpensive.Myguessisthatthecost
ofallthediscoveriesIwillmentioninPartI,when
puttogether,wasafewthousanddollars.Iwasthe
housetheoristfortheHarvardCyclotronfrom:,,
to:,,.Tatmachine,includingthebuilding,cost
something like a half million dollars. Te experi-
mentsnowbeingdonetofndtheHiggsbosoncost
billions. Tere is an irony in this, in that we now
knowthatover8opercentofthematterintheuni-
verse consists of objects we cannot identify. None
oftheparticlesIwilldescribeisacandidate,sowe
haveamystery.Iampersonallypleasedwiththis.I
see nature as something like those nested Rus sian
dolls, except in this case I think there may be no
limit.Tedeeperweprobe,themorewillbelefto
probe.
Part I
Primary Colors

1
The Neutron
It has so far been assumed that the neutron is a
complexparticleconsistingofaprotonandanelec-
tron.Tisisthesimplestassumptionanditissup-
portedbytheevidencethatthemassoftheneutron
is about :.ooo, just a little less than the sum of the
massesofaprotonandanelectron.Suchaneutron
wouldappeartobethefrststepinthecombination
oftheelementaryparticlestowardstheformationof
anucleus.Itisobviousthatthisneutronmayhelpus
tovisualisethebuildingupofmorecomplexstruc-
tures,butthediscussionofthesematterswillnotbe
pursued further for such speculations, though not
idle, are not at the moment very fruitful. It is, of
course,possibletosupposethattheneutronmaybe
an elementary particle. Tis view has little to rec-
ommend it at present, except the possibility of ex-
plainingthestatisticsofsuchnucleiasN
I4
.
JamesChadwick,TeExistenceofaNeutron,
Proceedings of the Royal Society A:,o(:,:):,oo
:o vvim.vvcoiovs
TewordisotopewasfrstusedintheDecember,
::,, issue of the journalNature in an article writ-
ten by the British radiochemist Frederick Soddy,
then a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He
hadobservedtwoversionsoftheelementuranium
thatseemedtohavethesamechemicalproperties
they were both uraniumbut slightly diferent
masses.Atafamilylunchhebroughtuptheprob-
lem of how to refer to these atomic brothers. A
guestwasaScottishdoctornamedMargaretTodd,
whowasafriendofhisin- laws.Shecameupwith
thenameisotope: toposbeingtheGreekforplace
and iso being the Greek for same. So isotope
means same place the place being the position
in the periodic tableand isotope it has been ever
since.ButweowethephysicsofisotopestotheNew
Zealandborn physicist Ernest Rutherford, one of
thegreatestexperimentalphysicistswhoeverlived.
By:ohehadcomebacktoEnglandfromCan-
ada and was at Victoria University in Manchester.
He had an assistant named Hans Geiger (later of
thecounter).GeigertoldRutherfordthattherewas
astudentnamedErnestMarsdenwhowaslooking
forsomethingtodo,soRutherfordassignedbothof
them to a project. At the time, the nature of the
1uiiU1vo ::
atom was already being discussed. It was known
thatundernormalcircumstancesitwaselectrically
neutralandthatitappearedtoconsistofabalance
of negative and positive charges. Te negative
chargeswereknowntobeelectronsparticlesthat
had been discovered by the British physicist J. J.
Tomson. Te positive charges later came to be
called protons (the term was invented by Ruther-
ford),andtheyapparentlycarriedmostofthemass.
InTomsonsmodelknownastheplumpudding
model the positive charges produced a kind of
pudding of charge, while the much less massive
electronswerescatteredaroundlikeplumsinthat
pudding.Itwasaconsequenceofthismodelthatif
amassiveenergeticparticleactingasaprojectilehit
a thin metallic foil, it would pass through the foil
like bullets through fog. Tis is what Rutherford
expectedtohappen,butforreasonshecouldnever
explainhetoldGeigerandMarsdentokeepaneye
out for collisions in which the projectile scattered
ofthetargetatlargeangles.Intheexperimentsthat
beganin:othetargetwasaverythingoldfoiland
theprojectileswereso-calledalphaparticleslater
showntobeheliumnuclei producedinthedecay
of radium. Much to the scientists astonishment,
:: vvim.vvcoiovs
someofthealphaparticlesbouncedofatverylarge
angles. Some years later Rutherford refected on
this:
Itwasquitethemostincredibleeventthathasever
happenedtomeinmylife.Itwasalmostasincredi-
bleasifyoufreda:,-inchshellatapieceoftissue
paper and it came back and hit you. On consider-
ation,Irealizedthatthisscatteringbackwardmust
betheresultofasinglecollision,andwhenImade
calculationsIsawthatitwasimpossibletogetany-
thingofthatorderofmagnitudeunlessyoutooka
systeminwhichthegreaterpartofthemassofthe
atom was concentrated in a minute nucleus. It was
then that I had the idea of an atom with a minute
massivecentercarryingacharge.
Te calculations that Rutherford was referring
to were published in :::. Te phenomenon they
describedhasbeenknownasRutherfordscattering
eversince.
With the discovery by Soddy of isotopes, how-
ever, it was clear that there was a dilemma: mass
did not follow charge. In his ::: Nobel Prize lec-
ture Soddy noted of isotopes, Put colloquially,
their atoms have identical outsides [the electrons]
butdiferentinsides[thecontentofthenuclei].Te
1uiiU1vo :,
protoncontentoftwoisotopicnucleiwasthesame,
but there had to be diferent electrically neutral
components to account for the mass diferences.
It would have been considered extravagant at the
timetoinventanewparticleforthispurposewhen
youhadperfectlygoodparticleslyingaround the
proton and the electronthat you could stick
together.
I now want to proceed in two steps. First I will
explainhowJamesChadwick(seeFigure:)wasable
todiscoverthisparticle,andthenIwillexplainwhy
hisdismissalofwhatwasthenknownabouttheiso-
topenitrogen- :wastotallymisguided.Tiswillne-
cessitatethatIintroduceyoutothenotionofspin.
Chadwicks experiment, done in :,:, is sur-
prisingly simple to describe, although it required
considerable skill to carry out. In fact, essentially
the same experiment had been done previously
by the Joliot-Curies in France, but they misinter-
preted the results. Tey had studied certain emis-
sionsfromanisotopeofberyllium.Teseemissions
are electrically neutral, and the Joliot-Curies as-
sumedthattheywereveryenergeticquantaofelec-
tromagneticradiation.Tesequantaweremadeto
impingeonmaterialscontaininghydrogen,andvery
: vvim.vvcoiovs
energetic protons were ejected afer the collision.
Te Joliot-Curies thought this was a form of what
was known as Compton scattering. Te American
physicist Arthur H. Compton, who had scattered
radiation quanta from electrons, had been able to
observethatthesecollisionsobeyedthesamekind
of conservation laws of momentum and energy as
did the elastic collisions of billiard balls. It was a
goodguessonthepartoftheJoliot- Curiesthatthis
was what was going on hereexcept that it was
wrong.
Chadwickwassuspicious.Tere weretwothings
that bothered him. In ::8 the physicists Oskar
Figure:. JamesChadwick.
PhotobyWilliamG.Myers,
courtesyoftheAmerican
InstituteofPhysics,Emilio
SegrVisualArchives.
1uiiU1vo :,
KleinandYoshioNishinaproducedaformulathat
described the details of the Compton results very
well.Chadwicksaidthesameformulashouldapply
to the scattering of these quanta by protons, and
theJoliot-Curieresultsdidnotft.Also,hedidnot
see where such energetic radiation quanta would
come from. Hence he decided to repeat these ex-
perimentsbutthistimeusetargetsofaverygeneral
nature. In all cases he found high-energy protons
ejected. He realized that a hypothesis that ftted
everythingwastosupposethatthisradiationcon-
sisted not of electromagnetic quanta but rather of
neutralparticlesofaboutthesamemassasthepro-
ton.Hencetheneutron.
Now I will explain the evidence that Chadwick
dismissedastowhytheseparticles wereelementary.
Tiswilltakeusintotheconceptofspin.
Spin was one of the triumphs of what became
known as the old quantum theory. Tis is to be
contrastedwiththenewquantumtheory,which
beganin::,withtheworkofWernerHeisenberg.
Teguidingspiritoftheoldquantumtheory,and
indeedofthenew,wasNielsBohr.Afergettinghis
Ph.D.inhisnativeDenmark,hecametoEnglandto
dopostdoctoralwork,initiallywithJ. J.Tomson,
:o vvim.vvcoiovs
but this did not quite pan out, so he went to work
withRutherfordinstead.Rutherforddidnothavea
greatdealofusefortheoreticalphysicists,whohe felt
talkedagooddealofmoonshine,andinanyevent
Rutherfordhimselfwasquitecapableofproducing
what evertheoryheneeded.Butanexceptionwas
Bohr.Rutherfordsawinthegangling,ratherawk-
wardyoungmanwhohadcometoworkwithhim
thesparksofgenius.Tetwodevelopedaveryclose
friendshipthatlastedtherestofRutherfordslife.
Tenuclearatomicmodelposedaproblemthat
seemed, and indeed was, beyond classical physics.
Classical electrodynamics taught that an electric
charge that accelerates radiates, removing energy.
Now,theRutherfordmodeloftheatomhadallthe
electrons outside the nucleus, presumably acceler-
atingallovertheplace.Ifso,whydidtheynotlose
energyandcollapseintothenucleus:Butthiswas
only part of the problem. It was well known that
whenagasofsomethingsuchashydrogenwasex-
cited, radiation was emitted in beautiful spectral
patterns. How was this possible if the electrons
werecrashingchaoticallyintothenucleus:(Anim-
age that has always appealed to me is tossing a
grand piano out of a window and expecting it to
1uiiU1vo :,
play Beethovens Moonlight Sonata as it hits the
ground.)TiswasthedilemmathatBohrsetoutto
workonaferhelefEngland.Inthishewashelped
by an unexpected source: a Swiss schoolmaster
namedJohannJakobBalmer.Balmer,whowasactu-
allyamathematician,hadnoticedsometwenty-fve
years earlier that if the wavelengths of the emitted
light in the hydrogen spectrum were plotted, their
values were related by a simple algebraic formula.
TisformuladescribeswhatisknownastheBalmer
series.HenceBohrsproblemwastofndanexpla-
nationfortheBalmerformula.
Heemployedwhatonecanidentifyasthreeim-
portantideas:
:. Notallorbitswereallowed.
:. Radiation was emitted only when an electron
jumpedfromsomeorbittoonecharacterizedby
a lower energy. Indeed, the energy emitted was
equal to the diference of the energies associated
withtheseorbits.Conversely,youcouldexcitean
electron by supplying this energy diference ex-
ternally, which accounted for what is known as
absorptionspectra.Teorbitoflowestenergywas
stablesincetherewasnoplacefortheelectronto
jump.
:8 vvim.vvcoiovs
,. As the orbital energies got larger the orbits got
closerandclosertogetherinenergy,sotheclassi-
calsituationwasapproached.Bohrcalledthisthe
correspondence principle, and it played a role in
histhinkingfromthenon.
FromthesethreeprinciplesBohrwasabletoderive
Balmers formula for his series. It was an epoch-
makingdiscovery.Whatisremarkabletomeisthat
itwasdoneinthecontextoftheoldquantumthe-
orydespitethefactthatinafundamentalwayitdid
not make a lot of sense. For example, what were
thesejumps:Wastheelectronfollowingsomesort
of trajectory when it made one: If so, what was
it: Te old quantum theory was mute on such
matters.
Anothergreattriumph,alsodoneinthecontext
oftheoldquantumtheory,wastheintroductionof
spin. Te story of spin illustrates the fact that the
pathtosuch discoveriesisofennotastraightline
but rather more like a random walk. In fact, as I
will explain, the spin of the electron was actually
mea sured in :::, some years before the concept
wasevendefned.Itwasonlylaterthatitwasreal-
ized that what the experimenters Otto Stern and
1uiiU1vo :
WaltherGerlachhadmea suredwasindeedtheelec-
tronspin.Asthenamemightsuggest,spinissome
sortofangularmomentum,butwhatsort:Tough,
asweshallsee,spinisaquantummechanicalcon-
cept, here I will give a picture that is classical, for
we are classical beings and that is how we tend to
seetheworld.Ihaveknownafewmathematicians
whoclaimthattheycanvisualizefourdimensions
ormore,butthatisbeyondmostofus.
Te Earth revolves around the Sun in an orbit
thatisnearlycircular.Tis,alongwiththetiltinthe
Earthsaxis,accountsfortheseasons.Tereisamo-
mentum associated with this motion that is called
the orbital angular momentum. It depends on the
speed of the Earth, its mass, and its distance from
theSun.ButinadditiontheEarthisspinning.Tis
rotation accounts for the night and day variation.
Te electrons in their Bohr orbits around nuclei
have orbital angular momenta. Since the radii of
theseorbitsarequantizedtheyhaveprescribed
valuesso do the orbital angular momenta. Bohr
discovered that if he quantized the angular mo-
menta,thiswouldleadtotheallowedorbits.Ifthe
angularmomentaoftheelectronsareaddedup,this
gives the atom an angular momentum. (Tere is
:o vvim.vvcoiovs
alsoacontributionfromthenucleus,whichwecan
neglecthere.)
What Stern, who conceived of the experiment,
proposed to do was to mea sure the angular mo-
mentumofthesilveratom.Teideawasthatbe-
cause of the circulating electrons the atom acted
likeatinymagnet.Testrengthofthismagnetwas
proportional to the orbital angular momentum. If
this tiny magnet was allowed to interact with a
suitably designed magnetic feld, the resulting
force would cause the atoms to deviate from a
straight- line trajectory. Tis deviation would de-
pend on how the atomic magnets were oriented,
which meant in what direction the angular mo-
mentumvectorpointed.Ifthesituationwereclassi-
cal,thisdirectionwouldbearbitrary,soasmearof
atomswouldappearonthedetector.Ontheother
hand,ifinfacttheangularmomentumvectorwas
quantized,itcouldonlypointinafxednumberof
directions. Tis meant that instead of a smear you
would see lines that Stern called space quantiza-
tion. Bohr had an obscure argument that seemed
to show that there should be only two such lines.
Tis is what the experiment found, so there was
generalsatisfaction.Butonlyin::,,thankstothe
1uiiU1vo ::
work of the Scottish physicist Ronald G. J. Fraser,
would it be realized that the whole angular mo-
mentum of the atom had to do with the spin of
one electron and that this mea sure ment had as-
certaineditsvalue.Inthemeantime,thenotionof
spinhadtobeinvented.
Tis invention was triggered by a dilemma in-
volvingatomicspectra.Cadmiumatomsgiveofa
spectrallinewhenexcited;in:8otheDutchphysi-
cistPieterZeemandiscoveredthatifcadmiumat-
omswereputinamagneticfeld,theonelinewould
split into three, with lines above and below the
original line. Tis could be explained classically,
soitbecameknownasthenormalZeemanefect.
Butbythe::oslinesbeganappearingthatcould
not be explained classically. Tis became known
astheanomalousZeemanefect,althoughitisa
more common occurrence than the normal Zee-
manefect.Tesenewlinescouldnotbeexplained
classically or by the old quantum theory. Tere
were some desperate attempts using baroque
atomic models, but fnally in :: Wolfgang Pauli
puthisfngeronthematterwhenhesaidinapaper
that the efect was not one of the collective mo-
tionsof theatomicelectronsbutmustresideinthe
:: vvim.vvcoiovs
properties of the single electrons. Tis turned out
toberight.
Pauli, whom I met a few times, was such a re-
markable character that I cannot resist describing
him. (He will reappear when we discuss the neu-
trino.) Robert Oppenheimer once said that Pauli,
who was born in Vienna in :oo, was the only
personheknewwhowasidenticaltohiscaricature.
WhenIfrstencounteredhiminthe:,oshewasa
corpulent gentleman with a very large head. Te
Russian theoretical physicist Lev Landau invented
awayofgradingphysicists.Teworstwastohavea
small bottom and a small head; then you would
havenogoodideasandwouldnothavethepatience
toworkoutanyyoudidhave.Nextwaslargehead
andsmallbottom;thenyouwouldhavegoodideas
butnotthepatiencetoworkthemout.Hemayhave
had Oppenheimer in mind here. Te best was to
have a large head and a large bottom; then you
would have good ideas and would work them out.
He must have had Pauli in mind. In fact, Paulis
head ofen bobbed rhythmically when he listened
toalecture.Ifitwasarapidmotion,itmeantthathe
disagreedwiththespeaker.
1uiiU1vo :,
TingsPaulisaidanddidhavebecomelegendary.
OnethatIespeciallylikewaswhenhesaidthatapa-
perhehadreadwasnotevenwrong.Ayoungphys-
icistwassoyoungandalreadysounknown.(Iam
convincedthatthiswasaplayonwhatthemaidin
Die Fledermaus said when she went to the masked
ballandmetaprince:Stillsoyoungandalreadya
prince:)Overtheyearshehadmanyverygifedas-
sistants,someofwhomwentontowinNobelPrizes.
OneofthesewasRoyGlauber.WhenGlauberfailed
to write his mother ofen enough from Zurich, she
complained to Pauli. Pauli never let Glauber forget
this; it persisted for years. In the late :,os Pauli
cametoCambridgeforavisit.Agroupofuswentto
therailroadstationtogreethim.ItincludedGlauber
andVictorVickiWeisskopf,whoalsohadbeena
Pauli assistant. Pauli greeted Glauber but did not
mention his mother. He then went of with Weiss-
kopf.Tefrstthinghesaidtohimwas,TistimeI
fooled Glauber and did not say anything about his
mother.
Pauliwasaprodigy.Hewroteanoriginalpaper
about relativity just afer graduating from high
school.Hedecidedthathewoulddohisstudiesin
: vvim.vvcoiovs
physicswithArnoldSommerfeldinMunich.Som-
merfeld was a legendary teacher, and among his
students were several future Nobel Prize winners.
Einsteincametolecture,andaferthelecturePauli
commented, Was Herr Einstein hat gesagt ist
nichtsobldeWhatMr.Einsteinhassaidisnot
so stupid. Afer Pauli took his Ph.D. in :::, Som-
merfeld suggested that he write a monograph on
relativity. Pauli produced a masterpiece that is still
oneofthebestsourcesonthesubject.Heseemedto
have read every possible paper in every language.
Whenhemadehiscommentontheelectronhewas
alecturerattheUniversityofHamburg.
TomeitisremarkablethatPaulididnotseethe
implications of his own suggestion about the elec-
tron. Moreover, he vehemently opposed the correct
explanationwhenitwasfrstpresentedtohim.Later
hechangedhismindandindeedprovidedthemath-
ematicsthatwestilluse.Tefrstcorrectsuggestion
wasmadebyaveryyoungGermanAmericanphysi-
cistnamedRalphKronig.Hehadgottenatraveling
fellowshipfromColumbiain::,andspentsomeof
histimeinTbingen,Germany,wherehewasasso-
ciated with a well- known spectroscopist named
AlfredLand.Landshowedhimacommunication
1uiiU1vo :,
fromPauli,whowasabouttovisit.InitPaulimade
thepointabouttheefectresidingineveryelectron
singly.
It immediately struck Kronig that this require-
mentcouldbemetifyougavetheelectronanextra
degree of freedom that resembled an angular mo-
mentum.Tiswasnotanorbitalangularmomen-
tumbutanintrinsicpropertyoftheelectron,which
becameknownasspin.Intheunitsthat werebeing
used,thisspinwas
:
:,whichmeantthatinamag-
netic feld the electron could be either aligned or
antialigned with respect to the feld. In the jargon
ofthesubject,thespinwaseitherupordown.
TissolvedtheproblemoftheanomalousZeeman
efect,butatanapparentcost.Tiswasstilltheold
quantum theory, which was an uneasy mixture of
classicalandquantumphysics,andinittheelectron
wasvisualizedasaballofchargewithacertainra-
dius.Paulirealizedthatifyoutookwhatseemedto
be a plausible radius, the surface of the sphere
would need to be moving faster than the speed of
light in order to provide the angular momentum.
Moreover,therewasafactoroftwointheargument
that was unaccounted for. On the basis of this he
persuadedKronignottopublish.
:o vvim.vvcoiovs
Meanwhile, unknown to everyone, there was a
parallelenterpriseafootinHolland,attheuniver-
sity in Leiden, involving two very young Dutch
physicists named Samuel Goudsmit and George
Uhlenbeck. Goudsmit was still a graduate student,
while Uhlenbeck was the assistant to Paul Ehren-
fest,aseniorprofessorandoneofthebestphysicists
inEurope.EhrenfestsuggestedthatUhlenbeckact
as a tutor to Goudsmit. Goudsmit knew all the
spectroscopic data, while Uhlenbeck knew more
theory.Teyhitontheideaofthespinbutweretoo
naivetoseetheapparentdimculties.Teywrotea
paper, which Ehrenfest submitted for them. Ten
theylearnedabouttheproblemsandtriedtowith-
drawthepaper,butEhrenfestsaidit wastoolate,
andbesides,they weresoyoungthatevenifitwas
amistake,noonewouldnotice.Indeed,verysoon
the dimculties evaporated: the electron began to
be thought of as a point particle rather than as a
ballofcharge,andthefactoroftwowasresolved.
Tusin::,itwasrealizedthattheStern- Gerlach
experimenthadactuallymeasuredthespinofthe
electron.Tereasonisthatthesilveratomhasone
valence electron outside the rest of the electrons.
Tiselectrondeterminestheangularmomentumof
1uiiU1vo :,
theatom,sincetherestoftheelectronscollectively
the core have no angular momentum. Te fact
that Stern and Gerlach had gotten two spectral
lines meant that this angular momentum of this
valenceelectronwas
:
:.
NowaferthisdetourwecanreturntoChadwick.
ItwillberecalledthatChadwickhaddismissedthe
evidencefromnitrogen-:thattheneutronwasan
elementaryparticle.Whatwasthisevidence:Itwas
then known that the angular momentum of this
nucleuswas:.Itwasalsoknownthatthespinofthe
proton was
:
: and that one of the possibilities was
that there were seven protons and seven neutrons
in this nucleus. (Te other possibility, which was
that there were fourteen protons and seven elec-
trons,ledtothesameresult.)Butthesesevenpro-
tonsmusthaveanangularmomentumthatwasin
totalahalfoddinteger.Iftheneutron wereabound
electron and proton, it wouldhaveanintegerspin,
andifyouaddedupsevenofthese,youstillgotan
integerspin.Terewasnowayyoucouldgetanan-
gularmomentumof:fromtheseneutronsandpro-
tons. So it had to be that the neutron was an ele-
mentaryparticleofspin
:
:.Itdidnottakelongfor
everyone,includingChadwick,toacceptthis.
:8 vvim.vvcoiovs
Itwasimmediatelyrealizedthatthediscoveryof
the neutron opened up entirely new prospects for
nuclear physics. Because it is electrically neutral,
the neutron can probe deep inside the nucleus,
since it is not repelled by the protons. One of the
peoplewhorealizedthiswasEnricoFermi.In:,
he assembled a small group in Rome that began
bombardingvariouselementswithneutrons,creat-
ingisotopesthathadneverbeenseenbefore.Tese
experimentsledto adiscoveryandanondiscovery,
both of which turned out to have great implica-
tions.AtonepointFermidecidedtoputapieceof
leadinfrontofhisneutrontarget.Hewenttogreat
troubletogettheleadproperlyshaped,butthenfor
reasons he was never able to articulate he decided
to replace the lead with paramn. What happened
wasthatthecountersmeasuringthereactionrate
jumped.Tiswasbeforelunch,andsoFermiwent
home for a siesta; by the time he returned he had
come up with the explanation. Te neutrons had
beensloweddownbycollisionswiththehydrogen
nucleiintheparamn.Butneutronsarebothwaves
andparticles,andthisslowingdownincreasedthe
wavelength and thus enhanced the nuclear reac-
tions.(Teseso- calleddeBrogliewaveshavewave-
1uiiU1vo :
lengthsthatincreaseasthespeedoftheassociated
particle decreases.) Tis efect explains how mod-
eratorscanbeusedtoincreasethenuclearreaction
ratesinreactors.
Tenondiscoveryhadtodowithuranium.Ihad
a chance to discuss this with the physicist Emilio
Segr,whowasawitness.Workingtheirwayupthe
periodictable,thegroupeventuallygottouranium,
and they decided that they needed to put some
extra shielding around the target. What they ex-
pectedtofnd,andindeedwhattheyclaimedthey
hadfound,wasthecreationofnewelementsbeyond
uraniumintheperiodictable.Infactwhattheyhad
found was nuclear fssion, but the extra shielding
preventedthemfromknowingthis.Whatwouldit
havemeantfortheworldifnuclearfssionhadbeen
discoveredinItalyin:,:
,o
2
The Neutrino
OnDecember,:,o,WolfgangPaulisentaletter
toagroupofcolleagueswhowereattendingaphys-
icsconferenceinTbingen.Headdressedthemas
DearRadioactiveLadiesandGentlemen.Telet-
terwassentfromZurich,andPauliapologizedfor
notbeingabletoattendtheconferencepersonally,
as it conficted with a ball he wanted to attend in
that Swiss city. (In his day Pauli was a very good
dancer and had a fondness for women. Figure :,
taken several decades later, shows that he had ac-
quired a substantial avoirdupois.) Te letter is one
of the most remarkable documents in twentieth-
centuryphysics.
Paulis concern was an anomaly that had oc-
curred in experiments on what was known as beta
decay. Ernest Rutherford, who had made an ex-
tended study of radioactivity, had identifed three
types of decay, which he called alpha, beta, and
gamma. Gamma radiation had actually been dis-
covered earlier by a chemist named Paul Villard.
1uiiU1vio ,:
Heavynucleisuchasthatofplutoniumcan,inde-
caying,produceanalphaparticle,whichwasiden-
tifed as the nucleus of helium. Many other nuclei
candecaytoproduceagammaray,whichisavery
energetic electromagnetic quantum. Some nuclei
when they decay produce a beta particle, which is
just an ordinary electron. It was in these decays
thattheanomalymanifesteditself.
Teobviousscenarioforsuchadecayisforthe
parentnucleustodecayintoadaughternucleusand
Figure:. WolfgangPauli(lef)andNielsBohrstudythemotionof
atop.PhotobyErikGustafson,courtesyoftheAmerican Institute of
Physics,EmilioSegrVisualArchives,MargretheBohrCollection.
,: vvim.vvcoiovs
anelectron.Ifenergyandmomentumareconserved
inthisdecayandtheparentnucleusisatrest,then
the electron must emerge with one and only one
energy. Te parent nucleus has no momentum,
which means that to conserve momentum the
daughternucleusandtheelectronmusthaveequal
andoppositemomenta.Tisfxestheenergyofthe
electron. Te problem was that the experiment
showedthattheemergingelectronhadaspectrum
of energies. Tis was such a puzzle that Bohr even
proposedthatenergywasnotconservedinthede-
cay.Paulithoughtthatthisideawasnonsense,and
in his letter he made a counterproposal. He sug-
gested that an invisible third particle was emitted
with the other two and that this particle carried
some of the energy and momentum. Te particle
was invisible since it was electrically neutral and
interacted very weakly with everything. It simply
departedfromthesceneofthedecay.
I have no idea what the radioactive ladies and
gentlemen made of this suggestion. Pauli was a
veryformidablephysicistwhohadtobetakenseri-
ously. How seriously he took his own suggestion
is unclear, since he never published it. But Enrico
Fermi took it seriously and created the frst real
1uiiU1vio ,,
theoryofbetadecay.Tequestionwaswhattocall
the particle. Pauli called it a neutron, but James
Chadwickhadalreadydiscoveredthediferentpar-
ticlethatwassoonwidelybeingcalledtheneutron.
Ferminotedthatneutronemeansbigneutralone
inItalian,andsincethisparticle,ifitexisted,hada
small mass, he called it neutrino, little neutral
oneandthenamestuck.
Teneutrinohadanoddroleinnuclearphysics
sort of like a crazy uncle who was not quite all
there. Tat was the attitude when I frst learned
aboutthisparticleintheearly:,os.Itwasalmosta
joke.Tisallchangedin:,othankstonuclearre-
actors, of which Fermi had created the frst one
duringthewar.Tesereactorsarefactoriesforpro-
ducing radioactive fssion fragments that in turn
undergobetadecay.Henceanalmostunbelievable
fux of neutrinos is produced. In the Savannah
RiverplantreactorsinSouthCarolinaafuxofover
tenthousandbillionneutrinospersquarecentime-
terpersecondwasproducedin:,obytheso-called
P reactor. Te two Los Alamos physicists who
observed the neutrinos, Clyde Cowan and Fred
Reines, in essence used a tank of water as the pri-
marydetector.Whenaneutrinowasabsorbedbya
, vvim.vvcoiovs
proton in the water, the proton was transformed
intoaneutronandemittedapositiveelectron.Tis
pro cess was the inverse of beta decay. (I shall dis-
cusspositiveelectronsindetailwhenIdiscussanti-
particles;sumceittosay herethatwhenapositive
electronmeetsanegativeelectron,bothareannihi-
lated, producing two very energetic gamma rays.)
Teneutronisabsorbedbyanothernucleus,mak-
ing the nucleus radioactive. It can emit a gamma
ray, and indeed, when Cowan and Reines looked,
they saw such gamma ray coincidences. But they
foundonlyaboutthreesucheventsperhourare-
fection of the weakness of the neutrino reactions.
Tese experiments convinced everyone. Pauli was
stillaround hewouldnotdieuntil:,8 andone
canimaginehisfeelings.Now,ofcourse,neutrino
experiments are commonplace and whole beams
areproducedatwill.
TeCowan- Reinesexperimentwasasmallpart
ofthe:,ogloriousrevolutioninphysics.Itwasa
revolutionthatIhavefondmemoriesof,sinceIwas
there and even took a very small part. For readers
tounderstandwhatwasinvolved,Ihavetoexplain
paritysymmetry.InFigure,youwillfndtwosets
of axes that you can use to locate points in space.
1uiiU1vio ,,
Noticehowthexandyaxesareoriented.Teone
ontherightiscalledright-handedbecauseyoucan
produceitnaturallywithtwofngersandathumb
ofyourrighthand.Teoneonthelefiscalledlef-
handedbecauseyoucandothesamewithyourlef
hand.Hereisachallenge:Canyoufndaseriesof
rotations that turns one of these coordinate sys-
tems into the other: It turns out that you cannot;
youmustinvertoneoftheaxes.Tisiscalledapar-
itytransformation.Tequestioniswhetheritmat-
ters from the point of view of the laws of physics.
Until the glorious revolution the answer would
have been an emphatic no. Indeed, some physics
texts were written with one choice and some with
y
y
x
x
z
z
Figure ,. Parity symmetry. Te lef-handed system is on the lef
andtheright-handedsystemisontheright.
,o vvim.vvcoiovs
theother.Bytheway,somepopulardescriptionsof
thiscallitmirrorsymmetry.Ifyoustandinfront
of a mirror with your right hand raised, your re-
fectionwillshowthisasyourlefhand.Butifyou
think about it, it is because the light is refected
straightbackatyou,soIthinkitisbetternottouse
thisanalogy.
Parity,likeangularmomentum,hastwosources.
Considertwolikeparticlesofspinothatorbiteach
other.Inthisstate,thevalueoftheparitydepends
ontheangularmomentum.Forexample,ifthere
is no angular momentum, then by defnition the
parityis:.Tetermofartistosaythattheparityis
even.Butthereisasecondsourceofparitythatis
intrinsictotheindividualparticlesandwhichthey
carryaroundnomatterwhattheirstateofmotion
is. Tis parity can be odd or even. Te pions, of
which we will hear much more later, have odd in-
trinsicparity.Anystateof:hasevenintrinsicpar-
ity,whileastateof,hasoddintrinsicparity.
Tegloriousrevolutionof:,oactuallybegan
in :,. I was present at its inception, although I
hadnoideaofwhatIwaswitnessing.Iattendeda
conferenceofparticlephysiciststhatwasheldatthe
UniversityofRochesterinJanuary:,.Oneofthe
1uiiU1vio ,,
speakers was an Australian-born theoretical physi-
cist named Richard Dalitz, who was then at Cor-
nell University. Although we became good friends
later he died in :ooo at the time I had never
heard of him. Dalitz spoke very fast in his Austra-
lian accent, and I did not understand the signif-
canceofwhathewassaying;ittookacoupleofyears
beforethefullimplicationsbecameclear.
Dalitz was analyzing the decay of a then new
particle discovered in cosmic rays that had been
giventhenametau.(Itisnowcalledthekaon,andI
shall have much to say about it later in the book.)
Te tau decayed into three pi- mesons. Dalitz had
found a very clever way of plotting these decays,
whichmadeitpossibletoreadofthespinandpar-
ityofthetau.Heconcludedthatthetauhadspino
andoddparity.Tiswasausefulthingtoknowbut
hardly revolutionary, for by April :,o, at another
conference,thingshadtakenadramaticturn.
Dalitz had been able to add many new decay
events to his plot and had confrmed his original
result. But in the meantime a second particle had
beendiscoveredandgiventhenametheta.Ithad
nearly the same mass as the tau indeed, within
experimentalerrorthesamemassbutitdecayed
,8 vvim.vvcoiovs
into two pions, which was a state of even parity.
Hence on its face it looked as if this particle, if it
wasoneparticle,coulddecayintostatesofopposite
parity.Tiswasarealdilemma.
Te visiting physicists shared rooms, and Rich-
ard Feynman was rooming with an experimental
physicistnamedMartinBlock.Tetheta- taupuzzle
came up, and Block asked Feynman if the whole
matter could be resolved if parity was not con-
served in the decay. Te next day Feynman re-
ported Blocks question to the conference (it is in
theproceedings).
In the audience were two Chinese American
physicists. Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang.
Tey werelookingintoarelatedquestion,whether
existingexperimentsruledoutparitynonconserva-
tion in the kind of weak interactions that were re-
sponsibleforthesedecaysandothers,buthadnotyet
come to a conclusion. Tey then proposed an ex-
haustivelistofexperimentsthatmightaddressthe
question directly. By June :,o they had written a
paperentitledAQuestionofParityinWeakInter-
actions.Bythefallofthenextyeartheyhadwon
the Nobel Prize for this work. I think that when
they published their paper almost no one thought
1uiiU1vio ,
thatparitywouldbeviolated.Paulievenbetmoney
againstit.Buttheexperimenterssettoworkandin
short order showed not only that parity was vio-
latedinthesedecaysbutthatitwasaverybigefect.
It is dimcult to imagine the sensation this caused
among physicists. At the time I was at Harvard as
the house theorist for the cyclotron. but I was in
closecontactwiththePhysicsDepartmentandes-
peciallyJulianSchwinger,wholaterwontheNobel
Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics.
Schwinger,likealmosteveryone else,wassurethat
parity would be conserved. We gathered in his of-
fcetodiscussthenews.Hebeganbysaying,Gen-
tlemen,wemustbowtonature.Manyofussetto
worktoseewhatitmeant.TefollowingyearIhad
abriefcollaborationwithLeeandYangattheInsti-
tuteforAdvancedStudyinPrinceton.Butwhatdid
theseresultssayabouttheneutrino:
Untilthegloriousrevolutiontheneutrinowas
pretty much thought of as Pauli had suggested it.
Tecanonicalexampleofabetadecaywasthede-
cay of the neutron into an electron, a proton, and
a neutrino. (I ignore here the question of whether
thisisaneutrinooranantineutrino,somethingwe
willcomebacktowhenIdiscussantiparticleslater
o vvim.vvcoiovs
in the book. It is an open question at the moment
whether the neutrino and antineutrino are really
distinctparticles,soforpurposesofthisdiscussion
I will suppose that they are not.) Te neutron has
an average (mean) lifetime of about 88: seconds
underffeenminutes.Ifyoucreateafreeneutron,
thisishowlongyoucanexpectittosurvive.Pauli
had suggested that, given the conservation of en-
ergy, the neutrinohadtohaveaverysmallmass
less than the mass of the electron. Te neutron is
heavierthantheprotonbyanamountthatisalittle
greater than the electron mass, which is why it is
unstable.Iftheneutrinohadalargermassthanthe
electron,thebetadecaywouldviolatetheconserva-
tion of energy since there would be more mass in
thefnalstatethanintheinitialone.Butaferthe
gloriousrevolutionitwasproposedthattheneu-
trinoemittedinbetadecayhadexactlyzeromass,
whichmeantthatitmovedwiththespeedoflight.
Experiments done at the time apparently showed
thatitwaslef-handed.Figuremakesthepoint.
Inthediagrampstandsforthemomentumand
Sstandsforthespin.Teneutrinohasspin
:
:,and
alef-handedneutrinohasitsspinandmomentum
orientedinoppositedirections.Tishandednessof
1uiiU1vio :
theneutrinoiscalledchirality(kheir)being
the Greek for hand. With the massless neutrino
it was shown that a theory could be invented in
whichthischiralpropertyimpliedparityviolation.
Everyone was quite pleased with this connection
until experiments several years later (which I will
describe) showed that the neutrino does have a
tiny mass. In physics, truth does not always equal
beauty.Tereisnoexplanationforparityviolation:
itisafact.
Not long aferward, a new puzzle suggested it-
self.Temuonwasmuchheavierthantheelectron.
Hencethemuonshoulddecayintoanelectronand
a gamma rayme+g. But no such decay has
ever been observed. Tere had to be a reason. Te
reasonnowacceptedisthatthemuonandtheelec-
tronareparticlescalledleptons,whichhaveaprop-
ertyassociatedwiththemthatiscalledtheirlepton
Right-handed:
p p
S S
Lef-handed:
Figure. Chirality.
: vvim.vvcoiovs
number.Temuonandtheelectronhavediferent
leptonnumbers,whilethegammasiso,foritisnot
a lepton. Hence if lepton numbers are conserved,
the gamma decay above is forbidden. But what
abouttheneutrinos:Tomakethingsconsistent,the
neutrinoemittedinbetadecayisassignedthesame
lepton number as the electron. However, the pion,
which has no lepton number, can decay into a
muonplusaneutrinopm+n.Hencethisneu-
trino must have a muon lepton number, which
makes it diferent from the neutrino emitted in
beta decay. Tis is a testable proposition, and in-
deeditwastestedinanexperimentdonein:o:by
LeonLederman,MelvinSchwartz,andJackStein-
berger.TeywereawardedtheNobelPrizein:88
forthiswork.Whattheydidwastouseveryener-
geticneutrinosemittedinpidecaytoproducemu-
ons, showing that this type of neutrino had the
same lepton number as the muon. One may recall
that when Cowan and Reines discovered the neu-
trinotheyusedneutrinostoproduceantielectrons,
whichshowsthattheneutrinoemittedinbetade-
cayhasanelectronleptonnumber.(Wenowknow
that there are actually three types of neutrinos,
somethingIwillcomebacktolater.)
1uiiU1vio ,
Te Sun, like most stars, gets its energy from
nuclearfusion.Teprocessbeginswithaweakin-
teraction that produces electron neutrinos. Te
physicist Ray Davis and the astrophysicist John
Bahcall set up a detector essentially a vat flled
with cleaning fuid deep inside the Homestake
Gold Mine, located in Lead, South Dakota. Tey
wanteditundergroundsoastoflteroutanyparti-
clesexceptsolarneutrinos,whichpassundeterred
througheverything;infact,aneutrinoofatypical
betadecayenergycanpassthroughalight-yearof
lead without interacting. Te reaction Davis and
Bahcall were looking for was the solar neutrino
transformationofthechlorineintheirdetectorinto
an isotope of argon, which is possible if the solar
neutrinos are of the electron type. Tey saw some
reactions, but not enoughthe theory predicted
more.BahcalltriedtoadjustmodelsoftheSun,to
noavail.Apossiblesolutionhadbeenknowntothe-
orists for some time: if these two neutrinos had a
diferent mass and if they moved with the same
energy, they would move at diferent speeds, with
the heavier one moving slower. Like all quantum
mechanical particles, these neutrinos had a wave
character.Tesewavescouldinterfere,andovertime
vvim.vvcoiovs
one mass type could oscillate into another. What
seemstohavehappenedisthatsomeoftheelectron
neutrinoscreatedintheSunturnedintomuonneu-
trinosbeforetheygottotheEarth.Temuonneu-
trinos could not produce the reaction Davis and
Bahcall werelookingfor,whichexplainstheresult
they saw. Unfortunately, neither this experiment
noritssuccessorstellusthemassoftheindividual
neutrinos; all they can give us is a relation among
the masses. Te relationship and the experiments
showthatanyoftheneutrinosmusthavemassesat
leastamilliontimeslessthanthatoftheelectron.
Wearesimplystuckwiththisfact,whichhasbeen
confrmedwithgreataccuracyinterrestrialexperi-
mentsusingaccelerators.Tismeansthattheneu-
trinoisnotquitelef-handed,ashadbeenthought
at the time of the glorious revolution. Since the
massesinvolvedareverysmall,thisefectwasnot
seeninthoseearlyexperiments.
JohnUpdike,myerstwhilecolleagueattheNew
Yorker,wasmuchtakenbytheneutrinoandwrote
anodethatbegins,Neutrinos,theyareverysmall./
Tey have no charge and have no mass. Te part
aboutthechargeisright,buttheydohavemass.In
Appendix,Idiscusssomeremarkableconsequences
1uiiU1vio ,
ofthisfact.Updikeclaimsthattheydonotinteract
at all. If that were true, we never would have de-
tected them. Tey interact some, though they do
passthroughtheEarthandcan,ashesays,enterat
Nepal / and pierce the lover and his lass. I would
be more concerned by the fact that there are about
four micro wave photons per cubic centimeter
everywhere.
o
3
The Electron and the Photon
Some experiments in physics change paradigms.
Te experiments of :,o:,, showing that in the
weak interactions parity is not conserved are an
example;physicswasneverthesameagain.Tisis
alsotrue,Ithink,oftheexperimentswithcathode
raysthatJ. J.Tomsondescribedinan:8,paper,
whichpostulatedtheexistenceofwhatcametobe
knownaselectrons.
Tomson was born in :8,o in Manchester, En-
gland.Hisparentshaddecidedonacareerofengi-
neeringforhim,butaferhisfatherdiedhewentto
Cambridge and never lef. Ernest Rutherford was
oneofhisstudents(seeFigure,).Whatstrikesme
abouthisexperiments,andthoseofRutherfordas
well,isthatthey weredoneontabletopswithavery
small number of people involved. By contrast, the
search for the Higgs boson, which I will describe
toward the end of the book, involves detectors the
sizeofabuildingandthousandsofpeople.
1uiiiic1vo.u1uivuo1o ,
Figure ,. J. J. Tomson (lef) and Ernest Rutherford. Photo by
D. Schoenberg, courtesy of the American Institute of Physics,
EmilioSegrVisualArchives,BainbridgeCollection.
8 vvim.vvcoiovs
Tomsons experiment involved vacuum tubes
ofthekindthatIusedtouseasaboywhenItried
to make radios. Te tubes were glass bulbs with a
metal flament inside them. When an electric cur-
rentwasapplied,theflamentglowedwhitehotand
something was boiled of the metal that made an
electric current in the tube. It was this current that
wasmodulatedtoamplifytheradiosignal.Iamem-
barrassedtosaythat,unlikeTomson,Ididnothave
the slightest curiosity about what this current was;
allIcaredaboutwasthattheradioworked.
AtoneendofTomsonstubewasacathodethat
washeatedwithelectricityfromabattery.Tiskind
of experiment had been done before, and it was
generally agreed that the particles that composed
the discharge from the cathode had a negative
charge. But the ray that traversed the tube was
thoughtnottobecomposedofnegativelycharged
particles,becauseearlierexperimentshadseemed
toshowthattheseparticlescouldnotbemovedby
applying an external electric feld. Tomson felt
thattheseexperiments werefawedsincethetubes
had not been evacuated sumciently. Once he cre-
ated an adequate vacuum, he found that the rays
particlescouldindeedbemovedbyanelectricfeld,
1uiiiic1vo.u1uivuo1o
andthatthey werenegativelychargedandpresum-
ablyidenticaltowhateverhadboiledofthecathode.
Buthowtomeasuretheirproperties:
He used two methods, both involving electro-
magnetic felds. In the frst method a magnetic
feld causedthecathoderayparticlestomoveina
curvedpath.Teyacceleratedandacquiredkinetic
energy, and this was transferred into heat when
the particles collided with a solid body. Tomson
measuredtheriseintemperatureandhencecould
learnwhatthekineticenergyhadbeen.Tishere-
lated back to the curvature of the path, which in
turnwasrelatedtothemagneticfeld.Puttingthese
things together, he was able to get a value of the
ratio of the mass of the particles to their charge.
Tesecondmethodheused,crossingelectricand
magnetic felds adjusted so that their efects just
cancelledoutandtheparticlespassedthroughina
straight line, led to the same ratio, which turned
outinallcasestobeaboutaten- millionth(insym-
bols,m/e~:o
7
insuitableunits).Whattomakeof
thisresult:
Tomsonknewthatthere wereexperimentsthat
measured m/e for ionized hydrogen. Te atomic
nucleushadnotyetbeendiscovered,sohedidnot
,o vvim.vvcoiovs
knowthationizedhydrogenwastheproton.Tese
experiments show that for this particle m/e was
about :o
4
a thousand times larger. He now had
choices.Hecouldsaysomethingaboutthemofhis
cathoderayparticles,abouttheirchargee,orabout
a mixture of the two. Tomson made the wrong
guess.Heguessedthatthem/eofhiscorpuscles,
ashecalledthem,wasduetothelargenessofeas
wellasthesmallnessofm.Hedidmaketheright
conclusion that they were a new state of matter
notanatombutprobablyaconstituentofanatom.
We now know, of course, that the electron has an
equal although opposite charge to the proton and
thatitsmassisclosertotwothousandtimessmaller.
Teparticleswehavediscussedandwilldiscuss
appear to fall into two categories. Tere are those
such as the neutrino that were predicted by
theoristsPauli in this caseand only turned up
much later in experiments. And there were those
such as the electron that had not been predicted
but just turned up. Te photonthe quantum of
radiation belongs more to the former category
than to the latter. We can trace its genesis back
to the year :oo, when the German physicist Max
Planckpresentedsomenewideasonwhatisknown
1uiiiic1vo.u1uivuo1o ,:
as blackbody or cavity radiation. Suppose you en-
closeacavitywithsomewalls.Forthepurposesof
what we are going to discuss, neither the size nor
shapeofthecavitymatters;neitherdoesthemate-
rial that the walls are made of. Now we heat the
walls.Teatomsabsorbtheheatandbegintoos-
cillate. Accelerated charged particles radiate, so
radiation is produced by the walls. Tis radiation
bounces around the interior of the cavity, being
absorbed and reemitted frequently by the electron
oscillators. In the course of time an equilibrium
is established and the walls and the radiation ac-
quirethesametemperature.Nowonecanask,what
is the distribution of this radiation: What I mean
is thattheradiationhasaspectrumoffrequencies.
Tey are present with various intensities, and one
wantstoplotacurveoftheseintensitiesasafunc-
tionofthefrequency(or,alternatively,asafunction
oftheirwavelengths).WhatappealedtoPlanckwas
that this curve was universal. It was the same for
blackbodyradiationinequilibriumnomatterwhat
thecavitywas.Itdependedonlyonthetemperature.
Tere had been attempts to produce the func-
tionalformofthiscurvepriortoPlanck,notablyby
theGermanphysicistWilhelmWien.Tesecurves
,: vvim.vvcoiovs
ftted the limited data that were available. But at
theturnofthecenturyPlancksBerlincolleagues
had done new experiments that did not ft the
Wiencurve.PlancklearnedthisataSundaylunch
in his house, and that eve ning he set to work. By
guesses and extrapolations he produced a new
curve.Tocallwhathedidaderivationisgilding
the lily. But his curve ftted the new data and has
fttedeverybitofdataonblackbodyradiationever
since.
OnNovember:8,:8,theCosmicBackground
Explorer(COBE)satellitewaslaunched.Itsjobwas
to measure the distribution of the radiation lef
overafertheBigBang.Teuniverseisalargecon-
tainer, and the radiation produced should rapidly
acquire a blackbody distribution. Some of this
curvehadalreadybeenmea sured,butCOBEdidthe
whole job. Te curve that resulted from these data
cannotbevisuallydistinguishedfromPlanckstheo-
reticalcurve.
Having produced his curve, Planck wanted to
derive it from frst principles. He found a deriva-
tion,buthedidnotlikeitatall.Aclassicaloscilla-
torcanemitandabsorbradiationonacontinuum
of frequencies. But to derive his curve Planck had
1uiiiic1vo.u1uivuo1o ,,
toassumethathisoscillatorsemittedandabsorbed
energyinpackets,whichhecalledquanta.Teen-
ergyofaquantum,Planckargued,wasproportional
toitsfrequency,n.Teconstantofproportionality
Planckcalledh,soE=hn.Planckwasveryproudof
this new universal constant h, and he told his son
Erwinthatitwasoneofthegreatestdiscoveriesin
all of physics. But he did not like the idea of the
Wavelength[mm]
[/cm]
FIRASDatawith400Errorbars
2.723KBlackbody
0 2 1 0.67 0.3
0 3 10 13 20
400
300
200
100
0
I
n
t
e
n
s
i
t
y

[
M
J
y
/
s
r
]
Figure o. Cosmic background radiation spectrum measured by
theFarInfraredAbsoluteSpectrometer(FIRAS)aboardtheCos-
micBackgroundExplorersatellite.Te:.,:,Kreferstothepresent
temperature of the radiation measured in degrees Kelvin. Tere
aresmalldeparturesfromthiscurvethatindicateturmoilinthe
veryearlyuniverse.
, vvim.vvcoiovs
quantized oscillators. My frst great teacher in
physics, Philipp Frank, from whom I heard about
this as a college freshman at Harvard, said it was
likethebuyingandsellingofbeer,whichwasdone
onlyinpintsandquarts.Planckspentseveralyears
tryingtoderivehisdistributionwithouttheuseof
quantabutfailed.EnterEinstein.
TefrstofEinsteinsgreatpapersof:o,hasthe
title, translated into English, Concerning a Heu-
risticPointofViewabouttheCreationandTrans-
formation of Light. Heuristic is such a strange
wordinthetitleofascientifcpaper.Itmeanssome-
thinglikeanaidtounderstandingoratrialthat
mightleadtoanunderstanding.IthinkthatEin-
steinwantedtomakeclearthathewasnotofering
a derivation. He understood clearly that Plancks
formulacouldnotbederivedusingthephysicsthat
wasthenknown.Rather,hewantedtoseewhatthe
formulameant.
Te curve in Figure o has two limiting situa-
tions. For the low frequencies below the peak
which correspond to long wavelengthsthe curve
canbederivedfromclassicalphysics.Butabovethe
peakthehighfrequenciesitisfttedbytheWien
distribution,andthiscannotbederivedfromclas-
1uiiiic1vo.u1uivuo1o ,,
sical physics. Here is where the new physics was.
Einstein decided to focus on this and to take the
Wiendistributionasanempiricalfact.Priorto:o,,
Einstein had mastered the kinetic theory. Tis is
the theory that describes the average behavior of
hugenumbersofmolecules,asinagas.WhatEin-
steinshowedwasthatasaconsequenceoftheWien
distributiontheradiationintheblackbodywasbe-
havinglikeagas.Hereisthewayheputit:Accord-
ing to the presently proposed assumption the
energy in a beam of light emanating from a point
source is not distributed continuously over larger
andlargervolumesofspacebutconsistsofafnite
number of energy quanta, localized at points of
space,whichmovewithoutsubdividingandwhich
areabsorbedandemittedonlyasunits.UsingPro-
fessor Franks image, not only is beer bought and
soldinpintsandquarts,butwhereveryoufndit,it
isonlyinpintsandquarts.
What I fnd remarkable in Einsteins paper is
thatnowheredoeshesaythatthesequantaarepar-
ticles.Hemusthaveknownthataquantumhasan
energy hn and a momentum hn/c where c is the
speedoflight.Whydoesnthesayit:Andwhydoes
he not say that to be consistent with the relativity
,o vvim.vvcoiovs
theorytheseparticleshavetobemassless:Allpar-
ticlesthataremasslessmovewiththespeedoflight
andviceversa.Hemusthaveknown.Inanyevent,
heusedtheconservationofenergytoexplainsome
resultsinwhatisknownasthephotoelectricefect.
Lightisshinedonametallicsurfaceandelectrons
are emitted. Te number of electrons emitted de-
pendsontheintensityofthelight,buttheenergyof
theelectronsdependsonlyonthefrequencyofthe
light,accordingtoPlanckslaw.Itwasforthiswork
thatEinsteinwasawardedtheNobelPrizeinphys-
icsfor:::;theRoyalSwedishAcademyofSciences
wanted nothing to do with relativity and said so.
(Te prize money went to Einsteins frst wife as
partoftheirdivorcesettlement.)
In::,ArthurComptonscatteredthesequanta
fromtheelectronsinthecarbonatom.Ifyouthink
ofthecollisionasobeyingthesamesortofenergy
and momentum conservation laws as the elastic
scatteringoftwobilliardballs,thenComptonsre-
sultscouldbeaccountedfor.Tisdemonstratedthat
the quanta were particles. Te name for this type
ofparticlecomesfromanunexpectedsource the
chemist Gilbert N. Lewis. In ::o he published a
lettertoNatureentitledTeConservationofPho-
1uiiiic1vo.u1uivuo1o ,,
tons.ItcontainsthesentenceIthereforetakethe
libertyofproposingforthishypotheticalnewatom,
which is not light but plays an essential part in
every process of radiation, the name photon. Te
restofthepaperisprettyconfused:ofcoursepho-
tonsarelight,andtheyarenotconserved.Teonly
thing that remains from this paper is the name
for theparticle.Tetheorythattreatsonlyphotons
and electrons is known as quantum electrody-
namics, and I will come back to it later. But these
arethe

particlesphysicistsdealtwithuntiltheearly
:,osthe primary colors. In the next chapter we
willventurefurtherintothepalette.
Part II
Secondary Colors
o:
4
The Pion and the Muon
By the mid- :,os the number of elementary parti-
cles that had actually been observed could be
countedonthefngersofonehand.Terewerethe
proton, the neutron, the photon, the electron, and
thepositron.Telastistheantiparticletotheelec-
tron. (I will later devote a chapter to antiparticles,
buthereIcannotethatthepositronhasthesame
massastheelectronandtheoppositecharge.Elec-
trons and positrons can annihilate into a pair of
gammarays,whichareveryhigh-energyphotons.)
BythetimeWorldWarIIbrokeout,themuonhad
Figure,.HidekiYukawa.
PhotocourtesyofShukiZakai.
o: sicou.vvcoiovs
been added to the list. We begin with the pion,
whichwasnotobserveduntil:,.
Wehaveseenthatin:oRutherfordalongwith
his two young colleagues discovered the atomic
nucleus, in which most of the mass of the atom
was concentrated. It is tens of thousands of times
smaller in diameter than the average distance to
theelectrons.Techemicalbusinessoftheatoms
is done by the electrons with the nucleus as a by-
stander. Tis shows incidentally that the force of
attraction between the electrons and the protons
inthenucleusmustactoveralongrange,wellbe-
yond the nucleus itself. But the protons repel each
otherelectrically.Iftherewerenotacounteracting
force,thenucleuswouldcomeapart.Tiscounter-
actingforcemustbestrongerthantheelectricforce
andmustbeveryshort- range.Tiswasthepuzzle.
EnterHidekiYukawa.
Yukawa was born in Tokyo in :o,. His father
became a professor of geology at Kyoto Imperial
University, and Yukawa did his studies there. He
took his Ph.D. in ::, and when the Depression
beganinJapanandhecouldfndnojob,hebecame
an unpaid assistant to a professor of theoretical
physicswhilecontinuingtolivewithhisfamily.It
1uivio.u1uimUo o,
is interesting that he was able to keep up via jour-
nals with the rapidly developing quantum theory.
In :,:, afer the neutron had been discovered,
Heisenberg wrote three papers on nuclear forces.
LikeChadwick,hebelievedthattheneutronwasa
boundelectronandproton,whichmeantthatthere
wouldbeelectronsinthenucleus somethingthat
led to all kinds of dimculties, which vanished the
minuteoneacceptedthefactthattheneutronwas
indeed an elementary particle. Yukawa used this
ideatocreatehisowntheoryofnuclearforces.
Teclearestwaytodescribewhathedidistouse
Feynmandiagrams(althoughthisisanachronistic,
since Feynman diagrams were not invented until
aferthewar).Ibeginwiththeforcethatcausestwo
electrons to interact. In the quantum electrody-
namicpicturethisforceiscausedbytheexchange
ofphotons(seeFigure8).
Here two electrons are shown exchanging a
virtual photon. It is virtual in the sense that this
photon is not directly observable. One can work
out the mathematics associated with this diagram
andshowthatinthefrstapproximationitleadsto
a force between the two electrons that is the same
as the one French physicist Charles-Augustin de
o sicou.vvcoiovs
Coulomb at the end of the eigh teenth century
claimedactedbetweenchargedbodies.Inthiscase
the force falls of in strength as the square of the
distance between the two charged bodies. One can
showthatthisisrelatedtothefactthattheparti-
cle being exchangedthe photonhas zero mass.
For many reasons this force cannot be what holds
thenucleustogether:forone,itistooweak,andfor
another,itiswhyprotonsrepeleachother.
Yukawa,asFigureshows,replacedtheelectrons
bywhatiscalledinthediagramapi-minusparticle,
thoughYukawacalleditaheavyquantum.
He was free to take the coupling of the heavy
quantumtotheneutronsandprotonsatanystrength

Figure8. Feynmandiagram.
1uivio.u1uimUo o,
he liked, so he could choose it to overpower the
electricforce.Moreover,hecouldchooseanymass
he wanted for it, but he had a clue from quantum
mechanics.Teneutronandprotonhaveaboutthe
same mass, while the pion also has mass. Hence
the emission and absorption of this massive pion
violatetheconservationofenergy.OneofHeisen-
bergs uncertainty principles tells us that the con-
servation of energy can be violated provided that
wedontdoitfortoolong.Teshorterthetimeof
observation,themoreuncertainistheenergy.Sup-
posewecalltheviolationEandthetimeinterval
t. Ten the uncertainty relation tells us that
Et~h,wherehisPlancksconstant.Tisconstant
is what mea sures our intrusion into the quantum
world. Using Einsteins relation between mass and
energy,E=mc

,wherecisthespeedoflight,ifwe
p
+
p
+
n
n

Figure. Feynmandiagramshowingpionexchange.
oo sicou.vvcoiovs
assumethatourvirtualparticleismovingwiththe
speed of light, then the distance it can travel is
about tc. Tis is the range of the force. Putting
thingstogether,wehavetc~h/mc.Tusweseethe
relationshipbetweentherangeoftheforceandthe
mass of the exchanged particle. But Yukawa ar-
gued that the range of the nuclear force must be
aboutthesizeofthenucleus,ofwhichhehadsome
idea. Tis enabled him to guess that the mass of
the heavy quantum had to be about two hundred
timesthatoftheelectron.In:,hewroteapaper
inexcellentEnglishthatwaspublishedinadistin-
guished Japa nese journal the next year and then
wastotallyignored.Butin:,oaparticlewasdis-
covered in cosmic rays that had about the mass
Yukawahadpredicted.TiscalledattentiontoYu-
kawas paper. However, it soon became clear that
thisparticle,whichfrstbecameknownasthemu-
mesonandisnowcalledthemuon,hadnostrong
interactions. It was for all practical purposes a
heavyelectron.(WhenthephysicistI. I.Rabiheard
about it, he famously remarked, Who ordered
that?)Temuonwasunstableanddecayedintoan
electron and two neutrinos. It had nothing to do
withthenuclearforce.
1uivio.u1uimUo o,
Te real Yukawa particle was found in cosmic
raysin:,.Itbecameknownasthepi- meson(later
thepion)andcameinthreevarieties,withpositive,
negative,andzerocharge,respectively.Ithadabout
the mass that Yukawa had predicted. Te charged
varieties decayed rapidly into muons and neutri-
nos, which is why the muon was the frst to have
been observed: the parent pi- mesons had decayed
away. Te neutral pion decays into two very ener-
getic gamma rays. For this work Yukawa was
awardedthe:NobelPrizethefrstJapaneseto
haveearnedone.Asenseofwhatthismeanttona-
tional pride coming so soon afer the war can be
seeninthepostagestampreproducedinFigure,.
ItshowsYukawainformalattire.
Tis was all very well except that the same sort
ofmethodsthat wereusedtodetectthepirevealed
a completely unexpected plethora of new mesons.
ToparaphraseRabi,whoorderedthem?Something
ofthefeelingisnicelysummedupinabitofdog-
gerel written by none other than Edward Teller,
whoisnotgenerallyknownforhislightverse.Te
Blackett he refers to is Patrick Blackett, a British
physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his work in
particledetection.
o8 sicou.vvcoiovs
Terearemesonspi,andtherearemesonsmu.
Teformeronesserveusasnuclearglue.
Terearemesonstauorsowesuspect
Andmanymoremesonswhichwecantyetdetect.
Cantyouseethematall:
Well,hardlyatall,
Fortheirlifetimesareshort
Andtheirrangesaresmall.
Temassmaybesmall,andthemassmaybelarge.
Wemayfndapositiveornegativecharge.
Andsomemesonswillnevershowonaplate,
Fortheirchargeiszero,thoughtheirmassisquite
great.
What,nochargeatall:
No,nochargeatall.
OrifBlackettisright,
Itsexceedinglysmall.
WhenIwasdoingmyPh.D.workatHarvardinthe
early :,os, most of the people who were working
with Schwinger and his associates were doing cal-
culations in quantum electrodynamics, but a few,
including myself, worked on pi-meson theory. My
advisor, Abe Klein, favored a particular theory we
were exploring; in reading the proceedings of the
1uivio.u1uimUo o
:,Rochesterconference,IfndmentionofKlein
andseveralothersdiscussingthistheory,aswellas
sessionsdevotedtonewexperimentalresultsonpi-
ons.AsInotedinChapter:,therewasalsoRichard
Dalitzdiscussinghismethodofplottingthedecay
ofanothernewlydiscoveredparticle.Butthesenew
particlesoccupiedaverysmallpartoftheprogram,
whichnowlooksantique noneofthemattersthat
were discussed then are of the slightest interest
from the present point of view. Te model that
KleinandIusedwasbasicallyuseless,exceptthatit
allowed me to get my degree. When I hear discus-
sions nowadays of a fnal theory, I think of these
:,conferenceproceedingsandwonder.
,o
5
The Antiparticle
In ::8 Paul Dirac produced an equation for the
electronthatunitedthequantumtheorywithEin-
steins relativity. Some people think that it is the
mostbeautifulequationintheoreticalphysics:

( ) 0 i
x
mc x
I am not sure I would go that far, but it is a very
beautifulequation.
However, Dirac recognized at once that there
wereproblemswithitssolutions.Foreachvalueof
the momentum of the electron there were four
solutions, and only two of them made sense. Te
other two gave the electron a negative energy that
wasimpossible.Tisledtoacoupleofyearsofwhat
Paulicalleddesperationphysicsbeforeasolution
wasarrivedat.Iftheelectronhadanegativecharge
and was represented by two ofthepositiveenergy
solutions,thentheothertwosolutionsrepresented
1ui.1iv.v1icii ,:
a particle identical to the electron but with the
opposite charge. Tis was the introduction into
physics of antimatter. Te problem was that at the
timethissolutionwasarrivedat,nosuchantielec-
tron was known to exist. Te matter was resolved
when the Caltech physicist Carl Anderson found
oneincosmicraysin:,:.Itbecameknownasthe
positron.
Oncethepositronwasfound,thewholesubject
of antimatter began to be taken seriously. It was
realizedthateveryparticlehadanantiparticle.Ina
fewcases,suchasthatofthephotonandtheelectri-
cally neutral pi-meson, the particles and antipar-
ticlesareidentical.Neutrinoshavenocharge,butit
isanopenquestionastowhethertheyareidentical
totheirantiparticles.Butifaparticlehadacharge
e,thentheantiparticlewouldhaveachargee.Ifa
particlehadamassm,thentheantiparticlewould
alsohaveamassm.Inpar tic u lar,theprotonhada
mass about two thousand times the mass of the
electronandachargeofe.Tustherehadtobean
antiproton with the same mass and the opposite
charge.Howtofndit:
Cosmicrayswerenotpromising,sincetheanti-
protonannihilateswithordinarymatterandwhat
,: sicou.vvcoiovs
youseeisthedetritus.Whathadtohappenisthat
anacceleratorhadtobeconstructedthatwassum-
ciently powerful to produce the antiproton. Te
idea was to have a target such as liquid hydrogen,
whose nucleus is just one proton, and then to
produce an energetic beam of protons in the ac-
celeratorthatwouldcollidewiththesetargetpro-
tons. Out of this collision an antiproton would be
produced,orsoitwashoped.Tequestionwashow
much energy this machine would need to have.
Heretherewasacomplication.Onebeganwithtwo
protonsone in the beam and one in the target.
Combined,thesehadtwounitsofpositivecharge.
Te aim was to end up with an antiproton, with
oneunitofnegativecharge.Tobalancethecharges,
the fnal state would need to have three protons
and one antiproton. Te reaction thus would be
p+pp+p+p+p
c
,wherepistheprotonandp
c
is
theantiproton.
Tere is no simpler reaction. But what is the
minimumprotonbeamenergyneeded:Astraight-
forward calculation shows that this energy is
aboutsixtimesthemassoftheproton.Teprob-
lemwasthatatthetimethiscalculationwasmade
there was no accelerator in the world that had
1ui.1iv.v1icii ,,
beamsofthisenergy.Teonlythingtodowasto
buildone.
Planningforsuchanaccelerator,whichbecame
knownastheBevatron areferencetotheenergyit
wastoproduce,whichwasmeasuredinbillionsof
electronvoltsbeganinthelate:osatBerkeley,
California(seeFigure:o).TatitwasinBerkeleywas
noaccident.ErnestLawrence,whowastheinventor
ofthecyclotron,wasaprofessorthere.Notonlywas
Lawrenceanexcellentphysicist,buthewasagenius
atraisingthekindofmoneyneededtobuildsucha
Figure:o. Tispicture,takenin:,,inBerkeley,California,shows
the Bevatron under the dome. Photo courtesy of the Lawrence
BerkeleyNationalLaboratory.
, sicou.vvcoiovs
machine. Originally the accelerator was designed to
produceprotonenergieswellabovethethresholdfor
creating antiprotons, but when the machine went
intooperationin:,,theenergyhadbeenreduced,
sotherewasonlyjustenoughtoexceedthethreshold.
In:,,theteamofexperimentersannouncedthatthe
antiprotonhadbeenfound.Idontthinkthiscameas
asurprisetoanyoneinphysics,butitseemedtoopen
up a good deal of pop u lar fantasy about antimatter.
TiswasneatlysummarizedbyapoemintheNew
YorkerthatwassignedonlybytheinitialsH.P.F.I
knewthattheinitialswerethoseofHaroldP.Furth,
who was a physicist and a classmate of mine from
Harvard,wherehewrotefortheLampoon.Te poem:
Te Perils of Modern Living
Wellupabovethetropostrata
Tereisaregionstarkandstellar
Where,onastreakofanti-matter
LivedDr.EdwardAnti-Teller.
RemotefromFusionsorigin,
Helivedunguessedandunawares
Withallhisantikithandkin,
Andkeptmacassarsonhischairs.
Onemorning,idlingbythesea,
1ui.1iv.v1icii ,,
Hespiedatinofmonstrousgirth
Tatborethreeletters:A. E. C.
OutsteppedavisitorfromEarth.
Ten,shoutinggladlyoerthesands,
Mettwowhointheiralienways
Werelikeaslentils.Teirrighthands
Clasped,andtherestwasgammarays.
I do not know where the tropostrata are, but I
do know where you can fnd a profusion of
antiprotonsthe inner Van Allen Belt. Te Van
Allen Belts are regions above the Earth where
charged particles are trapped in the Earths mag-
neticfeld.Teinnerbeltextendsfromaboutsixty
toaboutsixthousandmilesabovetheEarthssur-
face. When very high-energy protons get trapped
there,theresultcanbeantiprotons,producedusing
thesamereactionasintheBevatron.(Terearenot
enoughoftheseantiprotonstoconstituteamenace
tospacetravel.)
Afnalwordaboutantiparticlesthatareelectri-
cally neutral. First of all, as I noted earlier in the
chapter,thereisaclassinwhichparticleandanti-
particle are identical. Tese include the neutral
pi-meson and the photon. Ten there is a class in
whichtheyarenot.Teseincludetheneutronand
,o sicou.vvcoiovs
theK-meson(thelatterwillbediscussedinChap-
ter o). Te neutron and antineutron have many
propertiesincommon.Bothareelectricallyneutral
andhavethesamemass.Bothhavethesamespin,
:
:.
Bothareunstable,buttheirdecaymodeisdiferent.
Teantineutrondecaysintoanantiproton,aposi-
tron, and a neutrino. Tis decay mode is dictated
by something that is called the conservation of
baryon number. Te baryon number, which is at-
tachedtoparticlessuchastheprotonandneutron,
is : for these particles and : for the antiparticles.
Te rule is that this number is conserved in all
processes.Tatiswhytheanti neutrondecaysinto
anantiproton.Ifyou gobackandlookatthe reac-
tion that created antiprotons, you will see that it
reads p+pp+p+p+p
c
, which conserves the
baryon number. Te free antineutron, apart from
beingunstable,annihilateswithneutrons(andpro-
tons,forthatmatter),soyouwillnotfndfreeneu-
tronsfoatingaround.
Butin:o,awonderfulobjectwasproducedina
high- energyaccelerator.Wehaveseenthatthenu-
cleusofordinaryhydrogenconsistsofoneproton.
But there is a stable isotope called deuterium,
whose nucleus (called a deuteron) consists of one
1ui.1iv.v1icii ,,
proton and one neutron. In :o, antideuterons
were produced that consist of one antineutron
and one antiproton. Tey have the same mass as
deuterons.
Neutrinosmayormaynothavedistinctantipar-
ticles, as I remarked earlier in this chapter. Very
dimcultexperimentshavebeenunderwayforyears
tryingtodecidethis,andthejuryisstillout.
,8
6
Strange Particles
In prior chapters I have noted that some particles
werediscoveredincosmicrays,thepositronbeing
an example. Someone unfamiliar with the subject
mightgettheideathattherewasakindofbackyard
treasure hunt in which these particles were un-
earthed. Since the particles I will discuss in this
chapter were also found initially in cosmic rays,
I wanttoexplainwhatthismeans,beginningwitha
discussionofwhatacosmicrayis.
In :8o the French physicist Henri Becquerel
made the accidental discovery that a substance
containinguraniumemittedchargedparticles.Tis
was the discovery of radioactivity. Radioactivity
wasthoughtthentobethesolutiontoapuzzle.At-
mosphericairappearedtobeionized:itcarriedan
electriccharge.Teassumptionwasmadethatthis
was caused by the natural radioactivity coming
from the Earth. Tis was tested when in ::: the
Austrian physicist Victor Hess few in a balloon
to an altitude of some ,,,oo meters carrying an
s1v.civ.v1iciis ,
electrometer.Hefoundthattheionizationquadru-
pled at this altitude, which meant that its source
was extraterrestrial. At frst it was thought that it
wasemanatingfromtheSun.ButHessruledthis
out when he few in his balloon during a nearly
total solar eclipse and showed that the radiation
persisted. But what was it and where did it come
from:
In those presatellite days one could only study
theradiationfairlyclosetotheEarth.Tere were
two schools of thought. One argued that the
primary radiation consisted of very high-energy
photonsgammaraysandtheotherarguedthat
itwaspositivelychargedparticles.Tetwopropos-
alscouldbeassessedbymeasuringthecosmicray
fuxatdiferentlocationsontheEarth.Uncharged
particles such as gamma rays would not be de-
fectedbytheEarthsmagneticfeld,whilecharged
particleswould.Furthermore,becauseoftheEarths
magneticfeld,itwaspredictedthatmorepositively
chargedcosmicrayswouldcomefromthewestthan
fromtheeast.Bytheendofthe:,osmeasurements
madeitclearthatthecharged- particlepeople were
right. Now it is agreed that most of the primary
radiationconsistsofhigh- energyprotons.Someof
8o sicou.vvcoiovs
themareofahigherenergythancanbeproduced
in any accelerator. It is also generally agreed that
theyhavetheirorigininsupernovaexplosions.Te
ones that we see have been traveling for millennia
inthevacuumofouterspace.Whentheycrashinto
ouratmospheretheyproduceagreatvarietyofsec-
ondary particles, which are what is detected. But
howtodetectthem:
Te detector of choice was the so- called cloud
chamber,inventedbytheScottishphysicistCharles
Wilson.Cloudchambersnowcomeinavarietyof
forms, and one can fnd on the Web instructions
astohowtomakeoneforlessthanahundreddol-
lars. Wilsons consisted of a sealed chamber in
whichtherewassaturatedwatervaporwatervapor
that was close to condensation. Tere was a dia-
phragm that could be expanded, thus cooling the
mixtureandcausingthewatervaportocondense.
Ifachargedparticlepassedthrough,itwould ionize
a bit of the vapor. What one would observe was a
trailofionsproducedbytheseparticles.Toanun-
trained observer the whole thing could look like
a Mondrian abstract. A fairly simple example is
shown in Figure ::. It is one of Andersons frst
cloudchamberphotographsexhibitingapositron.
s1v.civ.v1iciis 8:
Onthelefyouseeathincurvedline.Anderson
hadamagneticfeldactingonhischamber,andhe
was very familiar with how an electron curved in
thisfeld:astheparticletraveledupwarditlosten-
ergyandthecurvatureofthetrackincreased.Tis
trackwasidenticalexceptthatitwascurvedinthe
Figure ::. Cloud chamber photograph of a positron track. Photo
byC. D.Anderson,courtesyoftheAmericanInstituteofPhysics,
EmilioSegrVisualArchives.
8: sicou.vvcoiovs
oppositedirection,meaningthattheparticlehada
positivecharge.Itisinterestingthatin:,oAnder-
son and his collaborator Seth Neddermeyer found
othercloudchamberphotographsthatlookedsome-
thinglikethis.Butthetrackswerelesscurved,in-
dicating that the particle producing them had a
largermassthantheelectronbutlessthanthepro-
ton.Andersoncalleditamesotron,toindicatethat
ithadamassinthemiddlebetweentheprotonand
theelectron.Tenamemesotronmorphedintothe
namemu-meson;now,sinceitisclearlyunderstood
that it is a lepton and not a meson, it is known as
themuon.
ButwherewasYukawasparticle:Aferthewara
solution to the puzzle was suggested that turned
out to be correct. It was hypothesized that cosmic
rayprotonsproducedYukawasparticle,whichrap-
idlydecayedintoamuonandaneutrino.Temuon
was the particle Anderson and others had found.
Terealpi-meson,orpion,wasfoundin:,bya
collaboration that used a photographic emulsion
as a detector. Tis is a light- sensitive gelatin, so in
some sense the charged particle takes a picture
of itself. Te pion is somewhat heavier than the
muon,whichiswhyitcandecayintoit.Techarged
s1v.civ.v1iciis 8,
pi-mesondecaysintoaleptonandaneutrinowitha
lifetime of about a hundredth of a microsecond,
whiletheneutralpi-mesondecaysintotwogamma
rays with a lifetime about a billion times shorter.
Tisshowsthattwodiferentkindsofforcesarein-
volvedinthesedecays.Teweakforceproducesthe
chargedpiondecays,whilethe muchstrongerelec-
tromagneticforceproducesthemorerapidneutral
pion decay. In our exposition so far we have been
dealing with three kinds of forces. Tere is the
strong force, which holds the nucleus together.
Tere is the electromagnetic force, which tries to
pushtheprotonsapart,andthereistheweakforce,
which produces decays into leptons. (Tere is also
theforceofgravitationtheweakestofallwhich
I shall discuss toward the end of the book.) If we
compare the electric force between two electrons,
which is repulsive, and the gravitational force,
whichisattractive,theelectricforceisstrongerbya
factorof:o
36
.
Te cloud chamber photo in Figure :: is simple
compared to the sort of im mensely complex tan-
gle of tracks that experimenters have to decode.
Figure::isafamousexample.Itisapicturetaken
atBrookhavenNationalLaboratoryinUpton,Long
8 sicou.vvcoiovs
Island,in:o,,anditshowsthediscoveryofapar-
ticlenamedtheomegaminus(

)whichconfrmed
thequarkmodeloftheelementaryparticles(which
Ishalldiscusslater).Notehowithasbeendecoded
withthelabeledparticles.
Te Brookhaven picture was taken using a so-
calledbubblechamber.Initchargedparticlesleave
tracks,anditisuptotheexperimentertofgureout
what they mean. One of the frst examples of this
waspublishedinthejournalNaturein:,bythe
BritishphysicistsG. D.RochesterandC. C.Butler.
Figure::. Tediscoveryofthe

atBrookhavenNationalLabo-
ratory.PhotocourtesyoftheAmericanInstituteofPhysics,Emilio
SegrVisualArchives.
s1v.civ.v1iciis 8,
Teyusedaphotographicemulsion.Ihavelooked
atthispicturemanytimesandIamstillastounded
by what they could deduce from it. Sometimes
evenifyouknowhowamagictrickisdoneyouare
still amazed by it. Tey took ,,ooo photographs
during:,,oooperatinghoursoftheircloudcham-
ber. Tey saw two tracks that came together to
make a fork or vee. What is signifcant is that the
two tracks emerged out of nowhere. Te experi-
menters found no other photographs of this kind.
Tey decided that whatever was causing this had
nothing to do with collisions. Te only explana-
tion they could think of was that it must be an
electrically neutral particle that lef no tracks but
decayed spontaneously into two charged particles,
which did leave tracks. Tey were able to estimate
the mass of this object and came to the conclu-
sion that,basedonthisdata,itcouldnotbesmaller
than about 8oo times the mass of the electron
(although with a very considerable error). Tey
had a second photograph showing the decay of a
charged particle that seemed to have a mass of
about :,ooo times the mass of the electron (again
with a substantial error). From the tracks it ap-
peared that the decay products were pi- mesons,
8o sicou.vvcoiovs
which in turn decayed into mu-mesons and
neutrinos.
TeparentparticleswereinitiallynamedVpar-
ticlesbecauseofthetracks.Forawhilenofurther
examples were found, but then in :,o Caltech
observers found ffy charged V particles and four
neutral ones. By the :,os it was understood that
there were four types of these particles, which
todaywecallK-mesons.Terewasapositiveone,
with a mass of about a thousand electron masses,
and its antiparticle, with the same mass and the
oppositecharge.Tenthereweretwoneutralones
one the antiparticle of the other with a slightly
larger mass than their charged counterparts. Te
neutralonesaretrulyremarkable,andweshallre-
turntothem.
In:8BrookhavenNationalLaboratorygotthe
go-aheadtobuildthelargestparticleacceleratorup
tothattime.ItwentintooperationinJanuary:,,.
Figure :, shows the ring around which protons
were accelerated. Comparatively, the Cosmotron
is almost a toyit is much smaller than a single
detectorattheLargeHadronCollider butitdid
make beams of K-mesons, which rendered the
cloudchamberpass.Ihaveaspecialfondnessfor
s1v.civ.v1iciis 8,
this machine, for I was on the theoretical staf at
Brookhavenforacoupleofyearsinthe:oos.When
themachinewasdownIusedtogointothebuild-
ingatnighttopracticemytrumpet.Teacoustics
werewonderful.
Whilesomeamazingdiscoveries weremadeus-
ing cosmic rays, there were limitations. Not only
couldonenotgetprecisemasses,butthereactions
that led to the creation of the new particles were
not evident. Moreover, there was no continuous
supplyoftheseparticles:theyarrivedatthewhim
of the cosmic rays. Tis was all rectifed once the
Cosmotron went into operation and mesons were
producedatwill.Furthermore,averystrikingthing
was discovered about the production reactions.
Figure:,. TeCosmotron.Notethehumanfgures,whichsetthe
scale.ImagecourtesyofPearsonScottForesman.
88 sicou.vvcoiovs
Recall that the Cosmotron produced a very high-
energybeamofprotons.Supposeyouhadasatar-
get liquid hydrogen. Ten you would be studying
proton- protoncollisions.Alsorecallthateachpro-
ton has a baryon number of :, so initially in this
reaction, which involved two protons, you would
have a baryon number of :. Tis number must
be conserved in the production process. Let us
write a reaction that produces a K
+
in the form
p+pK
+
+p+X
0
.Toconservechargeandbaryon
number the X
0
must be a particle with no charge
and baryon number :. Te obvious particle that
comestomindistheneutron.Buttheexperiments
showed that this reaction never happens this
wayaneutronisneverproduced.SotheX
0
must
be a diferent particle altogether. In fact, such ob-
jectshadalreadyshownupincosmicrays.
Telightestofthesewastheso- called
0
.Itwas
aneutralparticleabouthalfagainasmassiveasthe
proton. It decayed rapidly into either a p

and a
protonorap
0
andaneutron.Teothercandidate
was the so- called
0
. It was somewhat more mas-
sive than the
0
and indeed decayed into it along
with a gamma ray. Te K-meson was always pro-
ducedwithoneortheotherofthese.Tiswascodi-
s1v.civ.v1iciis 8
fed in the rule of associated production, but the
ruledidntoferanyexplanation.
TenextstepwastakenbyMurrayGell-Mann,
of whom we shall hear a great deal, and the Japa-
nese physicist Kazuhiko Nishijima. I will present
Gell-Manns version, since it was the one that ev-
eryone used. Gell- Mann always had a way with
names, and since the new particles were strange,
he introduceddegreesofstrangeness. Electrons,
muons, neutrinos, and photons were excluded
from the game. Pi-mesons, neutrons, and protons
wereassignedastrangenessofo.Tesituationwith
the K-mesons was more complicated. Te positive
and neutral K were assigned a strangeness of :,
while their antiparticles had a strangeness of :.
Te
0
and the
0
were assigned a strangeness
of :. Another, even heavier particle, the
0
, had
been discovered, and it had a strangeness of :. It
decays into a
0
and a p
0
, thus the rule of associ-
ated production was simply the statement that in
thestrongproductioninteractionsstrangenesswas
conserved. Tis was not true of the interactions
that caused the particles to be unstable. We have
seen,forexample,thatK-mesons,whicharestrange,
candecayintopions,whicharenot.
o sicou.vvcoiovs
NotlongaferhehadinventedstrangenessGell-
Mann went to the University of Chicago to give a
lecture on it. In the audience was Enrico Fermi,
who was then a professor at the university. During
Table:.Mesons.
Particle Symbol Antiparticle Makeup
Pion
+

ud
c
Pion
0
Self (uu
c
dd
c
)/ 2
Kaon K
+
K

us
c
,u
c
s
Kaon K
0
NA ds
c
,
Antikaon K
0c
NA d
c
s
Eta
0
Self uu
c
+dd
c
iss
c
Etaprime
0
Self uu
c
+dd
c
iss
c
Rho
+

ud
c
Rho
0
Self uu
c
,dd
c
Omega
0
Self uu
c
,dd
c
Phi Self ss
c
D D
+
D

cd
c
D D
0
D
0c
cu
c
D D
+
s
D

s
cs
c
J/Psi J/ Self cc
c
Upsilon Self bb
c
Note:Teneutralkaonsrequirespecialtreatmenttobeexplained.
Asuperscriptcstandsfortheantiparticle.Self meansthatthe
particleandtheantiparticleareidentical.
s1v.civ.v1iciis :
thecourseofthelectureFermiaskedaquestion.As
a rule, he noted, there are no pro cesses that can
turnaparticleintoitsantiparticle.Forbaryonsthis
wouldbeaviolationoftheconservationofbaryon
Rest Mass
(MeV/c

) Strangeness Lifetime Decay Modes

1.o o i.oo1o
8

1,.o o o.81o
I6
i
., 1/+1 1.i81o
8

+
,
+

0
,.o +1 NA NA
,.o 1 NA NA
,8.8 o ,.o1o
I0
i,
,8 o .i1o
2I

,,o o o.1o
23

0
,,o o o.1o
23

,8i o o.81o
22

0
1oio o io1o
23
K
+
K

,K
0
K
0c
18o. o 1o.o1o
I3
K+_,e+_
18o.o o .i1o
I3
[K,,e]+_
1o +1 .,1o
I3
K+_
oo. o o.,i1o
20
e
+
e

,
+

,...
oo. o 1.i11o
20
e
+
e

,
+

,...
: sicou.vvcoiovs
number,forexample.ButtheneutralK-mesonsare
quitediferent.Boththeparticleandantiparticlecan
decay into two pions. Tey have opposite strange-
nesses,butstrangenessisnotconservedinthede-
cay.Why,Fermiasked,couldnottheneutralKand
its antiparticle simply transform themselves back
and forth, and if that was possible, what were the
implications:
Gell-Mann returned to the Institute for Ad-
vancedStudyinPrinceton,wherehewasavisitor.
He had been collaborating with Abraham Pais,
whowasaprofessorthereandwhohadoriginated
the associated production rule. Here is what they
now came up with. Because of the associated pro-
ductionrule,theK
0
thatisproducedhasadefnite
strangeness : in this case. But now it begins to
transformintoitsantiparticle,soatanylatertimeit
isamixtureofparticleandantiparticle,whichhave
opposite strangeness. It is these mixed states that
have defnite masses and decay. Tere are two of
these, one with a fairly short life that decays into
two pions and one with a longer life that decays
into three. Over the course of time the short- lived
onedisappears,leavingonlythelong- livedone.Tis
leadstoadelightfulproperty.Ifthislong-livedpart
s1v.civ.v1iciis ,
isnowmadetointeractwithmatter,thetwostrange-
nesscomponentsoutofwhichitismadeactdifer-
ently. Te efect of this is to revive some of the
short-lived part, so the two-pion decay is once
againobserved.
Bynowtheplethoraofparticlesmaybemaking
you somewhat dizzy, even though so far I have let
youofeasy.Table:isarecenttableofmesons.
Clearly matters were getting out of control. But
thingswereabouttolookup.

7
The Quark
TreequarksforMusterMark!
Surehehasntgotmuchofabark.
Andsureanyhehasitsallbesidethemark.
JamesJoyce,Finnegans Wake
InMarch:o,MurrayGell-ManncametoColum-
bia University to give a lecture on a scheme he had
recentlyinventedforclassifyingelementaryparticles
Figure:. Quarkcheese.CourtesyofAppelFarms.
1uiqU.vx ,
and which he had somewhat playfully called the
Eightfold Way. In the teachings of the Buddha
a noble eightfold path was identifed, which, if
followed,wouldleadtoacessationofsufering.Te
partsofthepathincludedrightspeech,rightin-
tention,andrightconcentration.InGell-Manns
schemethecessationofsuferinginvolvedawayto
classifythebewilderingshowerofelementarypar-
ticles, which no one had predicted and which no
one understood. In his scheme the number eight
played an essential role. Despite their apparent
diferences, the particles seemed to be classifable
into multipletssubsets of particles that had pre-
dictable characteristics. One of the frst multiplets
to be identifed was an octet of mesons that in-
cluded the pi-mesons along with new mesons that
had recently been discovered. Tis is what Gell-
Mannlecturedabout.
I was at the lecture and the Chinese lunch that
followed it. Because of the presence in the depart-
mentofT. D.Leeofparityfame,whowasagour-
metandknewthechefsofthevariousChineseres-
taurantsnearColumbia,wecouldbeguaranteeda
veritable feast. But during the lecture Robert Ser-
ber, who was a very profound but generally quite
o sicou.vvcoiovs
reservedse niorphysicistinthedepartment,askeda
question.SerberhadstudiedGell-Mannspaperon
the Eightfold Way and had noticed that the sim-
plest representation arising from the theory was a
multiplet that consisted of just three particles. He
wantedtoknowifGell-Mannhadconsideredthat.
Gell- Mannsaidthathehadbutthatitledtoaco-
nundrum.Hesaidsomethingaboutitandthenwe
adjournedforlunch.Duringlunchtherewasafuri-
ousandveryfast- paceddiscussion,whichIwatched
as if it were some sort of intellectual ping- pong
game.Ishalldescribewhatitwasabout.
Let us suppose that we have such a triplet. Te
objective would be to use the three particles as
building blocks out of which to construct all the
elementary particles. Such an activity had already
beentried.FermiandYang,forexample,imagined
that the pi-mesons were composites of the neutron
andprotonandtheirantiparticles aswiththeneg-
ativelychargedpi- meson,whichwastobeacompos-
iteofaneutronandanantiproton.Oncethestrange
particlesbeganappearing,however,itwasclearthat
thismodelhadtobegeneralized.TeJapanesephys-
icistShoichiSakataintroducedamodelinwhichall
the particles were to be made up of three particles
1uiqU.vx ,
thatwerethoughtsomehowtobemoreelementary:
the neutron, the proton, and the newly discovered

0
. While it was possible to make all the particles
thenknownoutofthesethree,theschemewasnot
reallysatisfactory.Inthefrstplaceitwasnotclear
whythesethreechosenparticles wereanymoreel-
ementarythananyoftheothers.Furthermore,the
scheme predicted new particles that were never
found. Moreover, it was not compatible with the
EightfoldWay,whichseemedtowork.HenceGell-
Mannhadtostartfromscratch.
TerewasnoreasonwhytheEightfoldWaytrip-
let had to include any of the known particles. In-
deed,astheSakatamodelshowed,itwasbetterifit
didnt. So Gell- Mann introduced three hypotheti-
calparticles,whichhecalledup(u),down(d),and
strange(s).Teupanddownobjectshadastrange-
ness of o, while the strange objects had a strange-
ness of :. Now we can begin constructing the
known particles. Te proton, for example, is uud,
whiletheneutronisudd.Te
0
isuds.Youcansee
atonceaproblem,oratleastapuzzle:Whatelectric
chargesshouldtheseparticleshave:All elementary
particleseverobservedhadchargesthat wereinte-
germultiplesofthechargeoftheelectron.Forthe
8 sicou.vvcoiovs
protontheintegeris:,whilefortheneutronitiso.
Ifyoutrytodothisforthevariouscompositesmade
outofthesehypotheticalbuildingblocks,however,
it does not work. Suppose, for example, you give
theuunitapositivecharge.Tentogettheproton
chargefromuudyoumustgivethedunitanega-
tive charge. But that gives the neutron udd the
wrongcharge.Integerchargessimplydidntwork.
Whattodo:
Gell-Mann was driven to try something that
was eithercrazyorveryaudacious:heassignedthese
particles fractional charges! Te u was assigned a
chargeof
:
,,thed
:
,,andthes
:
,.Nowthescheme
worked,butatthecostofintroducingatypeofpar-
ticlethathadneverbeenobserved.Tiswaswhatwe
discussedthatdayatlunch.Where weretheseparti-
cles:Iftheyexisted,theywouldstandoutlikeasore
thumb. Soon afer, a worldwide search began. Te
most interesting experiments were carried out by
the late Peter Franken. He noted that most of the
Earthssurfaceisocean,sothemostlikelyplaceto
fndtheseobjectswasinseawater.Oystersconcen-
trate seawater, so the way to look for these objects,
hereasoned,wastostudyoysters.Evenifhedidnt
fnd them, he could always eat the oysters. Neither
1uiqU.vx
he nor anyone else ever found any trace of these
fractionallychargedparticles,however.
Inthemeantime,Gell-Mannhadcomeupwith
aname.Hehassaidthatwhenhewasfrstworking
ontheseobjectshedidnothaveanamebutrathera
sound.Heisanavidbird- watcher,sothesoundhe
cameupwithwassomethinglikequack.Hemay
havehadinmindthatinproposingthesequackpar-
ticleshemightberegardedasonehimself.Healso
had a considerable interest in linguistics, so the
kind of wordplay you fnd in Finnegans Wake was
veryappealingtohim.Whiletrollingthroughthe
book he hit on the sentence Tree quarks for
MusterMark,andquacksbecamequarks.Tusa
new term was introduced into the languageor
nearly new, for it turns out that quark is also the
name for a common German cheese made out of
sourmilk(seeFigure:).
Unknown to Gell- Mann, or indeed any of the
restofusatthelunch,agraduatestudentatCaltech,
George Zweig, had come up with an identical
scheme. Zweig called his fractionally charged par-
ticle aces and showed how all the known particles
couldbebuiltupfromthem.Ironically,Zweighad
beenastudentofGell- Manns,butGell- Mannhad
:oo sicou.vvcoiovs
takenasabbatical,sohehadturnedZweigoverto
Richard Feynman. Feynman did not take many
students, and Gell- Mann had had to reassure him
that Zweig was competent. Feynman was not that
interested in the model, and so Zweig wrote his
thesisonotherelementaryparticletopics.Butthen
ZweigwenttoCERNinGeneva,wherehetookthe
opportunity to write up his model. He wanted to
publishitinanAmericanjournalsuchasthePhysi-
cal Review, but there was a problem: at the time,
these journals had high page charges, and the au-
thorortheauthorsinstitutionhadtopaythemin
ordertopublishanarticle.Ontheotherhand,the
European journals frequently did not have page
charges, and a few even paid the author a small
amount. Te people at CERN refused to pay the
largepagechargesinorderforZweigtopublishin
an American journal, and Zweig refused to pub-
lish in a Eu ro pe an one, so his work came out as
twolonginternalCERNreports.Ittooksometime
before what he had done was recognized. A bit
later Feynman nominated both Gell-Mann and
Zweig for Nobel Prizes (at that point Gell- Mann
already had one), though nothing came of this
proposal.
1uiqU.vx :o:
It fairly rapidly became clear to physicists that
free quarks were not going to be found. Hence,
makingavirtueoutofnecessity,theyinventedady-
namicsthatwouldpermanentlyconfnethequarks
within the particles they were the constituents of.
Inthisdynamics,quarksexchangeparticlescalled
gluons.Tisgluondynamicshasaveryspecialchar-
acteristic.Ihavepointedoutbeforethattheforces
thatwearefamiliarwith theelectric,thestrong,
andeventhegravitational fallofwiththedistance
thatseparatestheobjects.Inthecaseofthestrong
pionforce,thisfall-ofisveryrapidindeed.Butthe
gluon dynamics produces a force that has just the
oppositeproperty.Itismorelikestretchingarubber
band,wheretherestoringforcebecomesgreaterthe
moreyoustretch.Ofcourse,youcanstretcharubber
bandenoughthatitbreaks,butnotsowithquarks.
Te confning force simply gets stronger. Tere is
noescape.Tequarksareimprisonedforever.
Tis raised the questionat least for some
peopleof the sense in which one can say that
quarksexist.WhenIheardthisdiscussionIwas
immediately reminded of similar discussions that
hadoccurredattheendofthenineteenthcentury
and the beginning of the twentieth as to whether
:o: sicou.vvcoiovs
atomsexisted;atomstoohadnotbeenobserved.As
I mentioned in the Introduction, there were two
kindsofatoms thephysicistsatomandthechem-
istsatom.Techemistsatomiswhatscalledavi-
sualizing symbol you can make a little diagram
forH
:
Owithoutknowinganythingaboutthemass
orsizeofthehydrogenandoxygenatoms.Tedia-
gram is a kind of bookkeeping device. But physi-
cistswanttoknowpreciselythemassesandsizesof
the atoms. A chemist might well argue that atoms
in their sense existed, while physicists might have
expressedreservations.Withthequarksitwaseven
worse. Te free quark was in principle unobserv-
able.Maybeitwasapurevisualizingsymbol.Gell-
Mann sort of punted. He said that the quarks
might simply be a theoretical crutchcurrent
quarks,hecalledthemthatguidedphysicistsin
formulatingtheories,aferwhichthequarkunder-
pinningcouldsimplybediscarded.Buttheymight
alsobeconstituentquarks,outofwhichparticles
are actually constructed. Tis matter was resolved
whenitturnedoutthattheconfnedquarkscould
actuallybeobserved.
Togiveyouanideaofhowsuchathingwaspos-
sible, I want to recount a little fable that George
1uiqU.vx :o,
Gamowpresentedinoneofhispopularbooksasto
how Rutherford and his collaborators discovered
thenucleusburieddeepintheinterioroftheatom.
Ganow imagined some country that had rebels it
was trying to deal with. Tese rebels needed can-
nonballs. Te method they used to try to smuggle
them in was to hide them in bales of cotton. Cus-
toms omcials could open up these bales by brute
force,causingallkindsofdamage.Buttheyhitona
cleverer method: they would shoot pistols into the
bales.Ifthebulletswentrightthrough,thecustoms
omcialscouldbesurethatnothingsolidwasinside,
butifthebulletsbouncedbackor werewidelyde-
fected,theyhadbetterlookforthecannonballs.In
Rutherfordsexperimentthebaleswerethinfoils
of gold and the bullets were alpha particles. Al-
though Rutherford was quite confdent that noth-
ing unexpected was going to happen and that the
alpha particles would sail though the foil unde-
fectedoratleastverylittledefected,somebounced
back.Tealphaparticlehadstrucksomethinghard
intheatomitsnucleus.Tatwastheideaforhow
tofndtheconfnedquarkshiddenintheparticles.
In the :oos a new accelerator was built at
StanfordUniversitytheStanfordLinearCollider.
:o sicou.vvcoiovs
Unlike a cyclotron, in which particles are circu-
latedincircles,inthismachineelectronsareaccel-
erated to an enormous energy down a two- mile
straightpath.Teseelectronsaretherifebulletsin
Gamowsimage,andtheprotonstheycollidedwith
were the cotton bales. Physicists skeptical about
quarks would have guessed that the electrons
wouldgomoreorlessstraightthroughtheproton.
But this is not what happened. Te results of the
experiments showed that the electrons had struck
objects inside the proton. Moreover, these objects
hadthefractionalquarkcharges.Tusitwashard
to argue that quarks did not exist. All the mesons
knownatthetimecouldbebuiltreadilyoutofthe
three quarks, u, d, and s. But when it came to the
baryons,therewasaproblem.
OnceagainWolfgangPaulicomesintoourstory.
AferBohrintroducedthenotionofthequantized
electron orbits around the nucleus, he wanted to
use this picture to account for the atoms we actu-
allyobserve.Heproposedin:::thattheelectrons
werearrangedaroundthenucleusinlayeredshells.
Tefrstshellcouldcontainatmosttwoelectrons,
whichcorrespondedtoatomichelium.Tenextflled
shellcouldcontainatmosteight,andnexteight,the
1uiqU.vx :o,
nexteighteen,andsoon.Tiswaytheperiodicta-
ble got built up. Te scheme seemed to work, but
Bohrcouldofernoexplanationforthesenumbers.
Paulicould,however.
Paulisworkdependedatitsbaseontheideathat
allelectronsarethesame.Itistruethatwhenyou
observeanelectronitmightbeinadiferentplace
or might have a diferent momentum or angular
momentum, but it would always be an electron. It
would always have the same mass, the same spin,
and the same charge. It carries no special mark of
identity.Nowsupposeyouhavetwoelectronsina
state with no orbital angular momentum, like the
groundstateoftheheliumatom.Buttheydohave
spins.Tespinscanbepointinginthesamedirec-
tionorinoppositedirections.Ifthespinsarepoint-
inginthesamedirection,thetwoelectronscanbe
exchangedandyouwillneverknowthediference.
Tis expresses itself in the quantum theory in the
behaviorofthefunctionthatdescribesthissituation.
If you exchange the variables for the two identical
electrons,thefunctioncangointoeitheritself orits
negative.Bothareacceptable,sincethephysicsde-
pendsonlyonthesquareofthefunction.Tereare
particlescalledBose-Einsteinparticlesthepionis
:oo sicou.vvcoiovs
an example which have integer spins. For these
particles the exchange produces no change in the
function. Ten there are particles called Fermi-
Diracparticles theelectronisanexample where
theexchangeproducesaminussign.
Next, suppose we have two electrons in exactly
thesamestate.Ifweexchangethem,wegetthemi-
nussign.Tissaysthatthefunctionisequaltoits
negative,whichispossibleonlyifthefunctioniso.
Tis is the Pauli exclusion principle. No two elec-
tronscanbeinexactlythesamestate.Wecanapply
thistothegroundstateelectronsofhelium,which
haveonlyspinangularmomentum,astheirorbital
angularmomentumiso.Tereareonlytwopossi-
bilities:oneelectronhasspinupandtheotherhas
spin down, or vice versa. If you try to add a third
electron, its spin will match one of the others,
which Pauli forbade. Hence the frst electron shell
closes at two, and the third electronintheground
stateoflithiumstartsanewlevel.
Weshallnowseehowthisappliestothequarks.
Tequarkshavespin
:
:,whichisnecessarybecause
whenyoucombinethreetomakeaproton(uud)the
resultantparticlemusthavespin
:
:.Tereisnovio-
lation of the Pauli principle here, since we can put
1uiqU.vx :o,
theuquarksindiferentspinstates.Table:isatable
ofbaryonsshowingtheirquarkcontent.Ifyoulook
back at the meson table (Table :), you will see the
quark contents. (You will also notice that there are
new quarks we have not yet spoken about, ones la-
beledc,t,andb.Wewillcomebacktothese.)
Mostofthemhavequarkcontentsthatareper-
fectlyconsistentwiththePauliexclusionprinciple.
But a few are black swans. I call your attention to
the

,whichwasfoundinBrookhavenin:o.It
has spin
,
: and strangeness ,. It is made up of
threesquarks,whichPaulisprincipleforbids.Iwill
returntothis,butfrstIwanttofnishsomebusi-
nesswiththeEightfoldWay.
Gell- Mannspentthefallandspringsemestersof
:,:ooinParis.SodidI,havingwonaNational
ScienceFoundationfellowship.Tepreviousspring
hehadcometoPrincetonandhadpaidavisittothe
InstituteforAdvancedStudy,whereIwasavisitor.
I had been working on another of his ideas, so we
talked.HeaskedmewhatIwasdoingthenextyear,
and I said that I was going to Paris. He suggested
that we might work together. Stick with me, kid,
and I will put you on Broadway, is what he said.
As it happens, we are almost the same age and
:o8 sicou.vvcoiovs
graduatedfromthesamehighschool,althoughhe
was three years ahead of me and went to Yale at
the age of ffeen. We saw a lot of each other in
Paris,andIwasabletofollowhimtosomeextent
ashestruggledtounderstandtheparticles.
Iusetosomeextentadvisedly.Allduringthat
time Gell- Mann was studying some mathematical
Table:.Baryons.
Particle Symbol Makeup
Rest Mass
(MeV/c

)
Proton p uud 8.
Neutron n ddu .o
Lambda
0
uds 111,.o
Sigma
+
uus 118.
Sigma
0
uds 11i.,
Sigma

dds 11,.
Delta
++
uuu 1ii
Delta
+
uud 1ii
Delta
0
udd 1ii
Delta

ddd 1ii
XiCascade
0
uss 11,
XiCascade

dss 1i1
Omega

sss 1o,i
1uiqU.vx :o
objectsthataroseinthetheory.Hekeptsayingthat
they commuted like angular momenta. I under-
stood that much. Ordinary numbers A and B
commute, in that AB=BA. In general, however,
thequantitiesthatrepresentobservablesinquan-
tummechanicsdonotcommute.Forexample,the
quantities that represent the components of the
Spin Strangeness
Lifetime
(seconds) Decay Modes
1
i o Stable
1
i o 881., pe

e
c
1
i 1 i.o1o
I0
p

,n
0
1
i 1 o.81o
I0
p
0
,n
+
1
i 1 o1o
20

1
i 1 1.,1o
I0
n

i o o.o1o
23
p
+

i o o.o1o
23
p
0

i o o.o1o
23
n
0

i o o.o1o
23
n

1
i i i.1o
I0

0
1
i i 1.o1o
I0

i o.8i1o
I0

,
0
K

,
...
::o sicou.vvcoiovs
orbitalangularmomentumdonotcommutewith
eachother.Buttheyobeyaverysimplecommuta-
tion relation. If you commute the components
in the xandydirections,say,theresultispropor-
tionaltothecomponentinthezdirection.Tecon-
stantsofproportionalityareverywelldefned.But
what this had to do with the elementary particles
wasbeyondme.
Itshouldnthavebeen,becauseIhadbeenamath
major before I switched into physics, and among
the things that I had studied were what are called
Liealgebras(aferSophusLie,whoinventedthem).
What Gell-Mann was saying, although he did not
realizeit,wasthathisquantitiesformedaLiealge-
bra.Terewasnoapplicationofthisworkinclassi-
calphysics.Nonetheless,ithappenedthattheFrench
mathematicianElieCartaninhisthesisinthe::os
had made a classifcation of these algebras. Gell-
Mann was a visiting professor at the Collge de
France,andanyofthemathematiciansheregularly
hadlunchwithcouldhavetoldhimthathewastry-
ing to fnd a Lie algebra that had repre sen ta tions
bearingsomeresemblancetotheobservedelemen-
tary particles. In the fall Gell-Mann returned to
Caltechandconferredwithanassistantprofessorof
1uiqU.vx :::
mathematicstherenamedRichardBlock.Blockex-
plained to him what he was trying to do, and very
shortly Gell-Mann found the Lie algebra that
worked.ItstechnicalnameisSU(,).Ithasrepresen-
ta tions in triplets, octets, and decuplets, as well as
higher- dimensional multiplets. Te octet was im-
mediately identifable. It consisted of the three pi-
ons, the four K-mesons, and a new meson called
theeta,whichhadbeendiscoveredattheBevatron
in Berkeley in :o:. Figure :, shows the octet dia-
gram.Youmustadmitthatitisathingofbeauty.
Now we can return to the

. First, how is it
classifed,andthenhowdowedealwiththePauli
problem:

K
0
K
+
K
0
K

s=1
s=0
s=1 q=1
q=1
q=0
Figure:,. Temesonoctet.
::: sicou.vvcoiovs
Figure :o shows the baryon decuplet. Some of
the particles are already familiar to you, and with
theexceptionofthe

,alltheotherswereknown
at the time Gell-Mann made his proposal. He was
abletotelltheexperimenterswhattolookfor,and
asImentioned,the

wasfoundatBrook havenin
:o. In :o Gell-Mann was awarded a well-
deservedNobelPrize.
TisstillleavesuswiththePauliproblem,how-
ever.Teoreticalphysicistsearntheirkeepbybeing
ingenious,andwhatwasneededwastoinventsome
distinguishingcharacteristicsforthequarks.Tus
the notion of color was introduced. It was actually
invented before it was needed. A theorist named
s=0
s=1
s=2
s=3
q=2
q=1
q=0
q=1

++

*
0
*

*
+
*

*
0
Figure:o. Tebaryondecuplet.
1uiqU.vx ::,
O. W. Greenberg had as early as :o: introduced a
kindofstatisticsthathecalledparastatistics.Itwas
an intermediate step between the Bose and Fermi
statistics and was an interesting idea, but at the
timeithadnoapplications.Oncethedilemmawith
the quarks was discovered, however, the theorist
YoichiroNambu(ofwhomwewillhearmorelater)
andhisgraduatestudentMoo- YoungHansawhow
toapplyGreenbergsideatothequarks.Youwould
takeafavor,suchasup,andrenderitintriplicate
byassociatingitwiththreediferentcolors,onefor
each of the three quarks. (Color is simply a mne-
monic for the characteristics, of course. Which
threecolors wereactuallychosendependedonthe
nation of origin of the physicists. Americans usu-
ally chose red, white, and blue.) When you write
the three s quarks for the

you choose one of

each color and hence avoid a confict with Pauli.
Tis triplication shows up in experiments of the
Stanfordtype,soitseemsreal.
Astheyearswentonnewparticleswerediscov-
ered and new quarks were needed. Tere are now
sixfavors.Table,showsthequarksthatareneeded
to make up the known particles. Te new quarks
arebottom(b),charm(c),andtop(t).
:: sicou.vvcoiovs
Tebaryonnumberofaneutronorprotonis:,
which is why each quark has a baryon number of
:
,.Temassesaregivenintermsofelectronvolts
(see Appendix : for an explanation). Te masses
of the up and down quarks are not precisely
known.

In:,o,whenIwasavisitorintheTeoryDivision
atCERN,therewasanannouncementthatSheldon
Glashowwascomingtogiveatalk.Ihadfrstmet
Glashow in the mid-:,os, when he came to Har-
vardfromCornelltodohisgraduatework.Atthe
time there was a windowless and usually smoke-
flledroominthebasementofthephysicsbuilding
Table,.Tequarksneededtomakeuptheknownparticles.
Name Symbol
Mass
(Mev/c

) Spin
Baryon
Number
Up u 1.,to.
1
i +
1

Down d .1to,.8
1
i +
1

Charm c 1,i,o
1
i +
1

Strange s 1o1
1
i +
1

Top t 1,i,ooo
1
i +
1

Bottom b ,1o
1
i +
1

1uiqU.vx ::,
thatwasoccupiedbythepeoplewho weretryingto
gettheirPh.D.sintheoreticalphysics,andthusthe
roomhadanatmosphereofangst.Ihadmydegree,
so I avoided going down there unless I wanted to
seeafriend.WhenIdidvisit,InoticedGlashow,a
tall fellow who seemed to be having a very good
time.Indeed,everytimeIsawhimheseemedtobe
playing a game. Te African strategy game wari
was a favorite. If Id had to make a guess, I would
havethoughtthatGlashowwouldbethelastperson
in this group to win a Nobel Prize. (It took him
until :,, when he received the Nobel for work
that he had started for his Ph.D. thesis with
Schwinger.)AtCERNyearslaterIdecidedtogoto
Electric
Charge Strangeness Antiparticle
Antiparticle
Symbol
+
i

o Antiup u
c

1

o Antidown d
c
+
i

o Anticharm c
c

1

1 Antistrange s
c
+
i

o Antitop t
c

1

o Antibottom b
c
::o sicou.vvcoiovs
his lecture, thinking that whatever he had to say
wasboundtobeentertaining.
What he was concerned with was an anomaly
inthedecaysofthemesons.IfyoulookatTable:,in
Chaptero,youwillfndsomemesonslabeledDin
thefarlef-handcolumn.Ifyoulookatthelifetime
forthedecayofthesemesons,whichisgiveninthe
farright-handcolumn,youwillseethatitislonger
than the others by a factor of some ten billion.
GlashowandhiscollaboratorsJohnIliopoulosand
LucianoMaianihadcomeupwithanexplanation:
there must be a new conservation law that was
at least approximately observed. Recall we had a
similar anomaly when we considered the decay
me+g, which does not occur at the rate one
thinks it should. In this case the conservation law
was the lepton number. Te new conservation law
was named the conservation of charm. (Glashow
invented the term charm, although why he chose
thiswordIdonotknow.)TeD-mesoncontained
one of these c quarks and hence was charming.
But it decayed into charmless particles, hence the
longer lifetime. I could not see anything wrong
withthis,exceptthatitstruckmeasliketryingto
kill a gnat with a sledgehammer. So I decided to
1uiqU.vx ::,
forget it. Tis state of indiference persisted until
:,.OnNovember::ofthatyeartwowidelysepa-
rated laboratories announced the same extremely
interesting discovery of a new meson that had a
somewhatlongerlifetimethantheothers.
Te West Coast experiments were done at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator by a group headed by
BurtonRichter,andtheEastCoastexperimentswere
done at Brookhaven by a group headed by Samuel
TingofMIT.Tequestionwaswhattocallthisnew
meson. In California, Richter wanted to call it the
SP, afer Stanfords SPEAR accelerator, though he
waspersuadedtocallitthepsi,sinceithadthelet-
ters sp reversed; in New York, the preferred name
wasJ,sincetheChinesecharactersforTingsname
areandthefrstonelookssortoflikeaJ.So
thetwonameswerecombinedandtheparticlewas
called the J/. Its properties are given in Table :.
Onemightthinkthatthismesoncouldbemadeup
outofquark-antiquarkpairsoftheusualtype.But
itdecaysintoK-mesons,whicharealsomadeupof
quark- antiquarkpairsoftheusualtype.Yetthisde-
cayissuppressed,sothequestioniswhy.Tenatural
answer is to suppose that the J/ is made up of a
charm- anticharmpair.Nowthedecayintoparticles
::8 sicou.vvcoiovs
thathavenocharmedquarksissuppressedandthe
result is explained to everyones satisfaction. Te
charm-anticharmpaircanhavediferentenergylev-
els.TeJ/representsthelowestoftheselevels.Te
higher levels correspond to more massive objects,
some of which have been observed. Tis system of
charm-anticharmquarksiscalledcharmonium.
Terearetwomorequarksthatweknowabout
thetopandthebottom.Tebottomquarkwasdis-
coveredattheFermiLabnearChicagobyagroup
ledbyLeonLederman.Usingprotonsfromtheac-
celerator,theycreatedanewmeson,theupsilon(see
Table :).Ithasasomewhatlongerlifetimethanex-
pected,so,usinganargumentsimilartotheonewe
usedaboutthecharmedquark,theexistence of a new
quark the bottom quark was accepted. Te top
quarkissomassivethatitisbarelyobservableeven
inthelargestaccelerators,buttheevidenceappears
convincing. Are there more lurking at higher en-
ergies:Perhaps.

I want to close this chapter with a little philoso-

phicalhomily acomparisonofphysicstobiology.
It involves the aforementioned George Gamow.
Gamow, who was a larger- than- life Russian- born
1uiqU.vx ::
eccentric, was also one of the most imaginative
physicistsofthetwentiethcentury.Forexample,he
hadworkedoutsomeofthephysicsoftheBigBang
longbeforeitwascalledthat,andlongbeforeany-
one else was much interested. He also persuaded
Rutherfordtoestablishthefrstparticleaccelerator
at Cambridge University. In the spring of :,, he
wenttoBerkeleytogivealecture.Whilehewasthere
thephysicistLuisAlvarezshowedhimtwoarticles
in Nature written by James Watson and Francis
Crick. Tey were the articles in which the double
helixmodelofDNAwaspresented.
WhenGamowreadthem,herealizedwhatwas
missing. DNA is a long strandin fact, two long
strandsmadeupofbases,whichIwillsimplyre-
fertoasT,A,G,andC.Tesebasesarestrungto-
gether like beads in a linear chain. What Gamow
understood, as did Watson and Crick, was that all
geneticinformationmustbeinthesebases.Gamow
had no idea how the information was gotten out;
whathewasconcernedwithwashowtheinforma-
tion was coded. He knew that this information
specifedtheaminoacidsthatwentintothemanu-
facture of proteins. He realized that there were a
limitednumberofaminoacidsthat wereused(there
::o sicou.vvcoiovs
aretwenty,infact),andhereasonedthatsomear-
rangement of the letters of the bases must be the
code for a particular amino acid. He realized that
two letters would be too few and four needlessly
many, and hence concluded that there would be
three- letter combinations, such as TGG or AGC,
which meant there were =o possibilities.
He decided that the ge ne tic code must be elegant
thewaythelawsofphysicsare,withnoduplication
therecouldbeonlyonewordperaminoacid.He
produced a very ingenious model thatapart from
the three- letter combinations was entirely wrong,
forhehadforgottenevolution.Inevolution,elegance
is not what counts only adaptability does. In fact,
thege ne ticcodecouldbedescribedasdegenerate,
in that more than one word can specify an amino
acidandsomewordsaresignalsforstartingorstop-
ping a sequence. Unlike physics, the genetic code
cannotbededuced.Someonewhoknewallthelaws
ofnatureatthebeginningoftimecouldpredictall
the atoms that could ever exist, and someone who
knew all the quarks could predict all the baryons
and mesons that could ever exist. But that knowl-
edgecouldneverpredicttheexistenceofagirafe.
Part III
Pastels
::,
8
The Higgs Boson
It was understood from the beginning that the
Eightfold Way was only an approximate symme-
try.Tisisevidentfromthemassesoftheparticles.
Te pi- mesons are placed in an octet that also
includes the strange K-mesons. Te mass of the
K-mesons is more than three times the mass of
the pi- mesons.Ifthesymmetry wereexact,allthe
Figure :,. Te ring of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It is
wellunderground.Teringhasbeensuperposedbytheartistto
show where the tunnel goes. Photo courtesy of the Eu ro pe an
OrganizationforNuclearResearch(CERN).
:: v.s1iis
particles in the octet would have the same mass.
Butwhenyoulookatthepropertiesoftheseparti-
clesitisnotclearatallthattheyhaveanythingto
do with each other. Tat is why fnding the sym-
metrythatunitesthemwassodimcult.
Te kind of symmetry breaking that is mani-
festedintheEightfoldWayisasoldasthequan-
tum theory itself. It was brought into the theory
by the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the
physicist Eugene Wigner. Wigner applied it to
atomic spectra. Te electrons outside the nucleus
ofatomsarelocatedonorbits.Tequantizationof
theseorbitswas,aswehaveseen,thegreatworkof
NielsBohr.Iftheatomisnotdisturbed,theelec-
trons fnd their way to the orbits of the least
energy thegroundstates.Iftheatomisexcitedby
heatoranelectricshock,theelectronsjumptothe
higherorbits.Butoncethedisturbanceisoverthey
go back to the ground state, emitting radiation
(whichisrelatedtotheenergylossastheelectrons
jump back down). Tis produces beautiful and
characteristic atomic spectra. Te atomic spec-
trumofanelementislikeafngerprintthatiden-
tifes that element. Tat is how helium was frst
discovered in the atmosphere of the Sun. Tese
1uiuiccsvoso ::,
lines refect the symmetry of the theory that de-
scribestheseenergylevels.However,thissymme-
try can be compromised by putting the atoms
in a magnetic feld. Tis breaks the symmetry in
a verywell- defnedway,andasaconsequence,what
wasasinglespectralline becomesamultiplet,as
wehavealreadydiscussed.
Tenumberandintensityoftheselinescanbe
predicted, as they refect the symmetry that was
broken. Tis kind of Wigner- Weyl symmetry
breakingisatplayintheEightfoldWay.Oneadds
asmalltermthatbreaksthesymmetry,sothemul-
tiplet masses get split. If one does this with tact,
then the resulting masses are related. Here, for
example,isGell- MannandOkubosmassformula
forthefamiliarbaryons:
2(m
N
+m

)=3m

+m

Te reader is invited to test this by putting in the

empirical masses and taking the average mass for
the proton and neutron and the average mass for
the . You will fnd that the agreement is quite
good,whichofersadditionalconfdenceaboutthe
scheme.
::o v.s1iis
WhenIwaslearningquantummechanicsinthe
late :,os we were taught Wigner- Weyl symmetry
breaking.Butin:o:YoichiroNambuandhisstu-
dent Giovanni Jona- Lasinio published two papers
that changed everything. Tis was an entirely dif-
ferentkindofsymmetrybreaking.
In his :oo8 Nobel Lecture Nambu gave an ex-
ampleofthistypeofsymmetrybreaking.Suppose
youhaveastraightrodthatiselasticandyoustand
itvertically.Itlooksthesamefromanyhorizontal
direction. Te symmetry is perfect. But if you
squeezeitdown,itwillbendinsomedirectionand
thesymmetryisgone.AnexamplethatIlikeisto
takethesamerodandbalanceitonapoint.Quan-
tummechanicstellsusthatthisbalancecannever
be perfect. Tere is always some quantum uncer-
taintyintheangleitmakeswiththeground.Hence
itwilltipover,butitisequallylikelytofallinany
direction.Onceitdoesthis,thesymmetryisgone.
Putting the matter somewhat more abstractly,
equations can show symmetries, but you are not
forced to choose solutions that respect these sym-
metries.Tiskindofsymmetrybreakingischarac-
terized as spontaneous, to distinguish it from the
Wigner-Weyltype,inwhichasymmetry-breaking
1uiuiccsvoso ::,
termisaddedtotheequations.Inthespontaneous
typenothingisaddedtotheequations.
Nambu applied his idea to magnets, crystals,
andsuperconductorsaswellastothetheoryofele-
mentaryparticles.Whenhestudiedamodelofthe
last,anuninvitedguestappeared.Butbeforegoing
further,letmereintroduceatermofartboson.In
themid-::osanIndianphysicistnamedSatyendra
NathBose(pronouncedbosh)introducedakind
ofstatisticsthatappliedtoparticlessuchasthepi-
meson and K-meson. He applied it to the photon
as well, and sent his paper to Einstein, who made
somecorrectionsandhaditpublished,translating
it himself from English into German. Particles of
thiskindarecalledbosons.Teotherclassofpar-
ticles,whichincludestheelectron,theproton,and
theneutrino,arecalledfermions,aferFermi,who
did pioneering work on their statistics. Tese are
the ones, as we have seen, that obey the exclusion
principle.
Te uninvited guest in Nambus model was a
bosonofzeromass.Atthetime,itwasknownthat
thephotonhadzeromass,anditwasthoughtthat
theneutrinoshadzeromass(whichtheydont),but
no boson of zero mass apart from the photon was
::8 v.s1iis
known,norisoneknowntothisday.Atfrstitwas
thought that this might be an artifact of Nambus
model,butin:o:theBritish- bornphysicistJefrey
Goldstone found another model with these parti-
cles, which are now called Nambu-Goldstone bo-
sons. Te feeling grew that these particles were a
blight that came with this spontaneous symmetry
breakingandhencemightnothavemuchrelevance
totheworldofelementaryparticlephysics.
Te breakthrough came in :o from physicist
WalterGilbert.Hehadbeenappointedanassistant
professorofphysicsin:,,butin:o,theyearin
which he wrote his groundbreaking paper, he be-
came an associate professor of biophysics at Har-
vard. He won the :8o Nobel Prize for chemistry
andwentontoroundouthisremarkablecareerby
cofounding Biogen. Tere is nothing wrong with
the arguments of Goldstone and Nambu, but they
are not general enough. Gilbert analyzed the as-
sumptions and noted that they did not apply to
electrodynamics.Tiswasawonderfullyliberating
discovery, and it was frst fully exploited for ele-
mentary particles, at least in print, by the En glish
physicistPeterHiggs.Inthisbusinessthereismuch
at stakepotential Nobel Prizes, for examplein
1uiuiccsvoso ::
theassignmentofcredit.Iwasnotthere,butIhave
Peter Higgss papers in front of me, and I think I
knowwhattheysayandwhattheydonotsay.Higgs
considered a theory, a form of electrodynamics,
that began with a massless photon and some bo-
sonsthatcoupledtoeachotherinaspecialwayand
tothephoton.Tistheoryenjoysanapparentsym-
metry that is broken spontaneously. If it were not
broken, the photon would remain massless. But
withthebreaking,somethingmiraculousthenhap-
pens:themasslessphotonacquiresamass,andthe
theoryacquiresamassiveboson,whichisnowuni-
versallycalledtheHiggsboson.Youhavetoseethe
mathematicstobelieveit.
Tefrstpersontotakeadvantageofallofthisin
asubstantialwaywasStevenWeinberg.Toexplain
whathedid,Ihavetobackupsome.Lookedaton
itsface,aswehaveseen,therearefourbasicforces.
Iputitthiswaybecausetheholygrailistoproduce
a theory of everything in which these forces will
be unifed. But we should understand what forces
wearetalkingabout.Testrongforceiswhatholds
thequarksintheirparticleconfnements.Itisme-
diated by the exchange of gluonsmassless pho-
tonlike objects that carry the color charge but not
:,o v.s1iis
anelectriccharge.Tesegluonschangethecolorof
the quarks. In the theory the gluon force has the
propertyImentionedbeforeofincreasingwithdis-
tance,sothequarksareconfned.Nextinstrength
is the electromagnetic force, which is mediated by
theexchangeofphotons.Iwillskipovertheweak
force for the moment and mention the weakest of
them all, which is the gravitational. It is mediated
bytheexchangeofgravitons.Teyhaveneverbeen
observed as free particles, and some have conjec-
tured that they never can be. (I will come back to
thisinthenextchapter.)Itmayseemoddtothink
of gravitation as being the weakest force, since it
is theforcewedealwithonadailybasis.Butitis
easy to compare the attractive force of gravity
between two protons and the repulsive electric
force.Gravityissome:o
36
timessmaller,whichis
why we can ignore it in our considerations about
nuclei.
Teweakforceisresponsibleforreactionssuch
as beta decay. As I mentioned in Chapter :, it was
Fermiwhodevelopedthefrstrealtheory.Hetried
to model it on electrodynamics, but there is a big
diference. In Fermis theory the interaction was
inefectmediatedalthoughhedidnotputitthis
1uiuiccsvoso :,:
wayby a particle whose mass was infnite. Te
force had zero range, meaning the particles in-
volved had to be on top of each other when they
interacted. Te theory explained a lot but came to
seemoutofjointwiththeotherforces,whichwere
mediatedbyparticleswithreasonablemasses,such
as the pion. Hence the physicists invented particles
tomediatethisinteractionthat weresupposedtobe
veryheavybuthadfnitemasses.Tey werethreein
number two charged ones, called W mesons (the
Wwasforweak),andaneutralone,calledtheZme-
son(forreasonsuncleartome).Variousproperties
wereconjectured.Remarkably,boththeWandthe
Z were observed in :8, at CERN, using what was
calledtheSuperProtonSynchrotron(SPS).TeW
mesonswerefoundtohavemassesthatweresome-
thing like ninety times the proton mass; the Z is
slightlymoremassive.
Te Z papers list of authors and their institu-
tionsisinstructive:
G.Arnison,A.Astbury,BernardAubert,C.Bacci,
G.Bauer,A.Bezaguet,R.Bock,T. J. V.Bowcock,
M.Calvetti,P.Catz,P.Cennini,S.Centro,
F. Ceradini,S.Cittolin,D.Cline,C.Cochet,
J. Colas,M.Corden,D.Dallman,D.Dau,
:,: v.s1iis
M. DeBeer,M.DellaNegra,M. Demoulin,
D. Denegri,A.DiCiaccio,D.DiBitonto,
L. Dobrzynski,J. D.Dowell,K.Eggert,
E. Eisenhandler,N.Ellis,P.Erhard,H. Faissner,
M. Fincke,G.Fontaine,R.Frey,R. Fruhwirth,
J. Garvey,S.Geer,C.Ghesquiere,PhilippeGhez,
W. R.Gibson,Y.Giraud-Heraud,A. Givernaud,
A. Gonidec,G.Grayer,T.Hansl-Kozanecka,
W. J. Haynes,L. O.Hertzberger,C.Hodges,
D. Hofmann,H.Hofmann,D. J.Holthuizen,
R. J. Homer,A.Honma,W.Jank,G.Jorat,
P. I. P. Kalmus,V.Karimaki,R.Keeler,I.Kenyon,
A.Kernan,R.Kinnunen,W.Kozanecki,D.Kryn,
F.Lacava,J. P.Laugier,J. P.Lees,H.Lehmann,
R. Leuchs,A.Leveque,D.Linglin,E.Locci,
J. J. Malosse,TomasW.Markiewicz,G.Maurin,
T.McMahon,J. P.Mendiburu,M. N.Minard,M.
Mohammadi,M.Moricca,K.Morgan,H. Muirhead,
F.Muller,A. K.Nandi,L.Naumann,A.Norton,
A. Orkin-Lecourtois,L.Paoluzi,F.Pauss,Giovanni
PianoMortari,E.Pietarinen,M.Pimia,A.Placci,
J. P.Porte,E.Radermacher,J.Ransdell,H.Reithler,
J. P.Revol,J.Rich,M.Rijssenbeek,C.Roberts,
J. Rohlf,P.Rossi,C.Rubbia,B.Sadoulet,G.Sajot,
G.Salvi,G.Salvini,J.Sass,J.Saudraix,A.Savoy-
Navarro,D.Schinzel,W.Scott,T. P.Shah,M.Spiro,
J.Strauss,JonathanMarkStreets,K.Sumorok,
1uiuiccsvoso :,,
F. Szoncso,D.Smith,C.Tao,GrahamTompson,
J. Timmer,E.Tscheslog,J.Tuominiemi,B.Van
Eijk,J. P.Vialle,J.Vrana,V.Vuillemin,Horst
D. Wahl,P.Watkins,J.Wilson,C.Wulz,G. Y.Xie,
M.Yvert,E.Zurfuh
Aachen,Tech.Hochsch.&Annecy,LAPP&
BirminghamU.&CERN&HelsinkiU.&Queen
Mary,U.ofLondon&CollgedeFrance&UC,
Riverside&RomeU.&Rutherford&Saclay&
ViennaU.&NIKHEF,Amsterdam&Wisconsin
U.,Madison&Kiel
Somewhere in the middle of this list of :,,
names the reader will fnd that of Carlo Rubbia,
whowastheconductorofthisgiantorchestra.He
designedtheexperimentandgottheNobelPrize.I
amnotsurehowthe:,ootherpeoplefeltaboutthis,
buttheymusthaveknownwhattheirroles were.It
is, of course, absurd to compare this situation with
thatofRutherfordandhistwocolleaguesdiscover-
ing the atomic nucleus more or less on a tabletop.
PerhapsaclosercomparisoniswiththeHarvardCy-
clotron. Tat machine was run by the experiment-
ersin the main, students and their professors.
Tere might have been three or four people in-
volved.Iwasoccasionallyaskedtopileleadbricks
:, v.s1iis
forshieldingoreventosewtargets.OntheCERN
accelerators, by contrast, the experimenters get
nowhere near the machine, which is run by pro-
fessional engineers. Te detectors are the size of
buildings, and the results can be analyzed only by
computersandmoretechnologists.Tecostrunsto
billionsandissharedbythecountriesthatcontrib-
utetheirtaxpayersmoneytoCERN.Tisiswhatit
takestodothiskindofparticlephysics.Iamcon-
stantlyamazedthatthemoneyisforthcoming.
Physicists had already assumed these particles
existed, and had been constructing theories with
them for many years. However, these theories had
an issue: they did not make sense. Put more con-
cretely, they produced infnities that could not be
gottenridof.Toexplainthis,Ihavetoreturntothe
electronandphoton.
A quantum world in which there are only elec-
trons and photons is described by the theory of
quantum electrodynamics. Te theory had its ori-
ginsataboutthesametimeasquantummechanics
wasinvented,inthelate::os.Tepioneers werea
familiar cast of characters that included, among
others,Dirac,Heisenberg,andofcoursePauli.Tis
theorycoulddescribetheemissionandabsorption
1uiuiccsvoso :,,
of photons and things such as the annihilation of
an electron-positron pair into two gamma rays.
YoucouldreadilyreproducetheformulaRutherford
hadderivedforthescatteringofapairofcharged
particles. Te quantum electrodynamic diagram
thatleadstothisisonethatwehaveseenbefore(see
Figure8inChapter).
But what quantum electrodynamics claimed to
beabletodowastocalculatethecorrectionstothis
diagram.TwoexamplesareshowninFigure:8.
Tesediagramsshouldproducesmallcorrections,
butinsteadtheyturnedouttoproduceinfnities.
All during the :,os theorists agonized over
this dilemma.Oneproblemwasthattherewasno
experimental guidance. Te experiments were not
Figure:8. CorrectionstothediagramshowninFigure8.
:,o v.s1iis
accurateenoughtodetectdeparturesfromthenon-
correctedexpressions.Tischangeddrasticallyaf-
terWorldWarII,however.Duringthewaranum-
ber of physicists had worked on radar and other
developments that had taught them new skills,
which they later applied to experiments on these
efects.Twoofspecialimportance weredoneatCo-
lumbia University. One, in :,, involved the col-
laboration of Willis Lamb and Robert Retherford
and focused on the energy levels of the hydrogen
atom.Testandardtheoryatthattime,whichused
theDiracequation,predictedthattwoofthelower
levelsshouldhavethesameenergy.Terehadbeen
prewarsuggestionsthatthismightnotbethecase
andthatthehigher-orderefectsofquantumelec-
trodynamicsmightberesponsible.Buttheexperi-
mentshadnotbeendoneandthetheoryproduced
an infnite correction. In their work, however,
LambandRetherfordmeasuredwithgreatprecision
what is known as the Lamb shif. It was perfectly
fnite and demanded an explanation. Te second
thing that was measured was a magnetic property
oftheelectron.Tespinningelectronactslikeatiny
magnet. Its strength is mea sured by what is called
itsmagneticmoment.AgaintheDiractheorypre-
1uiuiccsvoso :,,
dictedwhatthisshouldbe,anditisgenerallygiven
intermsofadimensionlessconstantcalledg.Te
Diractheorypredictedthatgshouldequal:,butex-
perimentsshowedthatitdepartedfrom:byatiny
amount.Terecentexperimentalvalue(witherror)
is:.oo:,:,o:::(:.,:o
I2
).Notethatitisonly
twothousandthslargerthanthevaluefromtheDi-
racequation.Tiswasagainassumedtobeaquan-
tumelectrodynamicalefect,andagain,computing
it gave an infnite answer. Now there was a real
challenge.
Tis is not the place to go into detail of how the
challengewasmet.Inbrief,itwaslargelytheworkof
JulianSchwinger,Feynman,andSin- ItiroTomonaga
(the last of whom worked with his small group in
isolationinJapanduringthewar),andFreemanDy-
sonknittedallofthistogetherinaseriesofmonu-
mentalpapers.WhatIwilldiscuss hereisthenotion
of renormalization. When, to take an example,
Rutherford scattering is done using only the sim-
plest Feynman diagram, you insert into the dia-
gramavaluefortheelectroncharge.Tischargeis
ofen referred to as the bare charge. But when you
take into consideration the corrections, the charge
isalsocorrected.Teproblemisthatthiscorrected
:,8 v.s1iis
chargeisinfnite.Temeasuredchargeispropor-
tionaltothebarecharge,andthisconstantofpro-
portionality is infnite. Renormalization consists
of ignoring this fact and simply replacingthebare
chargebythemeasuredone.Somethingsimilarhas
to be done for the electron mass. Te remarkable
thingisthatwhenthisisdoneitrenderstheterms
in the Feynman diagrams fnite. Dyson showed
thattoeveryorderthisworks.Tatiswhyyoucan
calculate,forexample,gtosuchaccuracy,namely,
g
theory
=:.oo:,:,o8. You are invited to compare
thistotheexperimentalvalue.
A theory in which this procedure can be done
with only a fnite number of such alterations is
called renormalizable. Quantum electrodynamics
istheposterchildforsuchatheory.Itrequiresonly
two such redefnitions. You may well have some
queasyfeelingaboutthis.Aferall,theinfnitiesare
still there; they have just been shoved under the
rug. For a while Dyson tried to show that the full
theorywasfnite,buthefoundaphysicalargument
to show that it probably isnt. Still, some theories
are not even renormalizable; as we will discuss in
the next chapter, the theory of quantum gravity
is one.Butsoisthetheoryofweakinteractions,in
1uiuiccsvoso :,
which the W and Z mesons are simply put in by
hand.Itpresentedtheparadoxthatsolongasyou
didnotworryaboutcorrectionsitworkedwonder-
fully,butwhenyoutooktheseintoaccountyougot
nonsense.Tisproducedagooddealofdesperation
physics.AndthencameStevenWeinberg.
In Weinbergs electroweak theory you begin
withasymmetricsituationinwhichboththepho-
tonsandtheweakmesonshavenomass.Teyinter-
actwithbosonsalongthelinesoftheHiggsmodel.
Te symmetry is spontaneously broken and the
samemiraclehappens:theweakmesonsacquirea
massandthephoton doesnt.TeHiggsbosonac-
quiresamass.ItallftstogetherlikeaSwisswatch.
Weinbergconjecturedthatthetheorywouldbere-
normalizable, and this was proved in detail by
Martinus Veltman and his student Gerardus t
Hoof. Tey shared the Nobel Prize for this work.
Butthereisapriceoranopportunity,depending
onhowyoulookatit.TetheorygeneratesaHiggs
boson. Without it the whole thing collapses. Tis
launchedamonumentalexperimentalquest.
Never have so many physicists spent so much
timeandmoneyinsuchaquest.Terearethreeac-
celeratorsthathavebeenorareinthehunt twoof
:o v.s1iis
thematCERNandoneatFermilab,nearChicago.
Te oldest of these is the Large Electron Positron
(LEP) Collider at CERN, now decommissioned. It
showedthattheHiggsbosoncouldnothaveamass
lessthanabout::oprotonmasses.Butitfoundno
credibleevidencefortheparticle.Teexperiments
attheTevatron(alsonowdecommissioned)atFer-
milab tightened the limit considerably, hence we
knewhowlighttheparticlecouldbe.Tetheorists
presentedconvincingargumentsastohowheavyit
canbe somethingalittleover:ooprotonmasses.
Tismeantthatitwasintheenergyrangeaccessi-
ble to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and in-
deed, on July , :o::, two experimental teams at
CERN announced very impressive evidence that
the particle exists. It is worth discussing the form
thatthisevidencetakes.
Figure:,showsthelocationoftheLargeHadron
Collider at CERN. As its name suggests, the Large
HadronCollidercollideshadrons inthiscase,pro-
tons.Teseprotonsaremovingatspeedsonlyfrac-
tionally lower than the speed of light. Collisions at
these speeds involve the constituent parts of the
protons thequarksandgluons.Itistheseparticles
thatmergeandmakeaHiggsboson.TeHiggsbo-
1uiuiccsvoso ::
son is very unstable and has several possible decay
modes. Tree of the most interesting are into a W
+

andaW

ortwoZ
0
s,or,alternatively,intotwogamma
rays.TeWandZparticlescandecayintoelectrons,
muons,andneutrinos.TwoZparticlescanproduce
two electron- positron pairs, two muon pairs, or a
mixtureofelectronandmuonpairs.Tesefourlep-
tonchannelsareverystriking.Itishardtoimagine
anyothersourceforthembesidesaHiggsdecay.On
the other hand, the gamma ray channel is hard to
distinguishfromthebackground.Itrequiresacare-
fulanalysistoconcludethatwhatisbeingobservedis
notbackground.Tefactthatthereisatwo- gamma
decayprovesthatthisparticleisaboson aparticle
withintegerspin.Eachgammahasspin:,sotwoof
them must have an integer angular momentum.
Hencesomustthe newlydiscoveredobjectifangular
momentumisconservedinthedecay.Tetwode-
tectorsatthe LHC,ATLASandCMS,areclaimed
to have detected gammas above the expected back-
ground.Indeed,bothannouncedthattheirdata were
consistentwithaparticlewithamassofabitover:,o
protonmasses.Tesimplestassumptionisthatithas
spino.Itcanbeshownthatthefactthatitdecaysinto
twogammasrulesoutspin:.SpinoHiggscanhave
:: v.s1iis
one of two intrinsic parities, pseudo scalar like the
pionorscalarasthestandardtheorywouldsuggest.
Tediferenceshowsupinpropertiesofthedecays.
It would appear as if all the evidence is consistent
withascalarHiggs.Tereisasortofgoldstandard
thatisusedinthiswork,andthatisthenumberof
sigmas,orstandarddeviations,thatcanbeattached
to the data. Te higher the number of sigmas, the
morereliablethedataaresaidtobe.Forscientiststo
declareadiscoverysuchasthis,thedatashouldhave
a fve-sigma validity. Tis means that the data are
welloverpercentcertain.TeteamsattheCMS
andtheATLASeachreportedasigmaclosetofve,
and if all the data are combined, including those
fromtheTevatron,thisgivesasigmaofoverseven.
TiswasenoughfortheCERNexperimenterstode-
clare victory. Tey may well be right, but there was
so much pressure to discover this particle that it
makesmeabitqueasy.Figure:depictsasimulated
Higgseventasitwouldhaveappearedinoneofthe
CERNdetectors.
HereIrepeatamoralitytalethatIfrstnotedin
Chapter :. Soon afer the neutron was discovered,
Enrico Fermi decided to become an experimental
physicistandtodoexperimentswithneutrons.His
1uiuiccsvoso :,
group in Rome bombarded with neutrons every
elementtheycouldlaytheirhandson,workingtheir
wayuptouranium.Fermiknewwhathewasgoing
tofndwithuranium:thathewouldmakeatrans-
uranic element, one heavier than uranium. Tis
elementwouldbeobservednotdirectlybutthrough
its decays. Indeed, Fermi found the decays he
thought he would, and so he declared victory. In
Figure:. AsimulatedHiggseventasitwouldappearinoneofthe
CERNdetectors.PhotocourtesyoftheEuropeanOrganizationfor
NuclearResearch(CERN).
: v.s1iis
fact, as I have said, what he had discovered
althoughhedidnotknowit wasnuclearfssion.It
had nothing whatever to do with transuranic ele-
ments.Iwillkeepthisstoryinminduntilthereare
moredatafromtheLHC.
My feelings about the claimed discovery of the
Higgsbosonaremixed.Iftheyhaveindeedfound
it,itwillendachapterinphysics.Iamremindedof
somethingthataFrenchcolleagueoncesaidtome.
He had had a parameter named afer him, and it
was much discussed because a theory of the weak
interactions hinged on it. Finally the pa ram e ter
wasmea sured,anditconfrmedthetheory.Iwent
to congratulate him, and he said that he was un-
happybecausenowtheywillspeakofitnomore.
Similarly,IthoughtthatnotfndingtheHiggspar-
ticle would be more exciting, because new physics
wouldthenbeneeded.Idontbelievetoomanyof
mycolleaguesfeltthisway.
Tis reminds me of the following story about
Einstein. He had just received a telegram with the
news that the solar eclipse expeditions had con-
frmed his general relativity prediction about the
Sun bending starlight. He was very pleased with
himselfandshowedthetele gramtooneofhisstu-
1uiuiccsvoso :,
dents, Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider. She asked him
what he would have done if the tele gram had
containedthenewsthattheexperimentsdisagreed
withthetheory.Hereplied,Daknntmirhaltder
lieber Gott Leid tun, die Teorie stimmt doch,
whichtranslatesasTenIwouldhavebeensorry
forthedearLord.Tetheoryisright.
:o
9
Neutrino Cosmology
Tereadermaywellwonderwhattheneutrinohas
to do with cosmology, which is the science of the
evolutionoftheuniversefromtheBigBang.Ihave
noted that neutrinos can go through light- years of
leadhardlyinteracting.Butthereisaqualifcation
that I did not state. Te neutrinos I had in mind
had the sorts of energies found in beta decay. Te
conditions in the very early universe were entirely
diferent,however.
Te Big Bang occurred about :,., billion years
ago. One can readily get the idea from the name
that one is discussing an explosion in which the
objectsproducedexpandedintospace.Butaccord-
ingtopresentideas,priortotheBigBangtherewas
nospace- time.Whatexpandedisspace- timeitself,
and the particles came along for the ride. Afer
about:o
37
secondsspace-timeexpandedexponen-
tiallyforaveryshorttime.Tisexponentialexpan-
sion, which is called infation, is necessary to ac-
count for some of the regularities we presently
iU1viocosmoiocv :,
observe.Tisinfationaryepochlefitsimprinton
theblackbodyradiationlefoverfromtheBigBang.
TecurveIshowedinFigureo,backinChapter,,
isnotquitedetailedenoughtoshowthis,butother
experimentsdo.
When the infation stopped, we were lef with
theplayersinthegamethatweregoingtoeventu-
ally constitute the universe we know today. Tere
areotherplayerswehavenotyetobserveddirectly
such as dark matter. In the former category are
thequarks,antiquarks,andgluons.Terearesug-
gestions that there are fewer antiquarks than
quarks, which would account for the fact that the
universe we know is dominated by particles and
notantiparticles.Aferaboutamicrosecond,things
cooled down to where the quarks could be bound
by the gluons to make the mesons and baryons.
Most were unstable and decayed into something
elsethe leptons, such as electrons and muons,
and the various neutrinos, which were created in
theBigBangalongwithphotons.Particlesannihi-
lated with antiparticles, leaving the particle domi-
nanceweseetoday.Itwasstilltoohottoallowstable
nucleitobeformed;ambientgammarayswouldrip
themapart.
:8 v.s1iis
Ataboutthreeminutesthingshadcooledtothe
point where deuterons could be formed. Two deu-
teronscouldfusetomakeaheliumnucleus,andit
isthiscosmologicalheliumthatinterestsus.Tings
were still too hot to allow the formation of atoms;
theelectronswouldhavebeentornofbythegam-
mas.Butaferabout,,o,oooyearsthingscooledof
to where atoms began to form. Te number of free
electrons was greatly diminished. Tis means that
the photons had nothing to collide with and could
expand freely with the universe. Te cosmic back-
groundradiationweobservetodayislargelyarelic
lefoverfromthisepoch.
Ifwelookaroundthecosmos,itseemsquiteir-
regular. Tere are stars and galaxies and quasars
and black holes. But if you average over every-
thing,theuniverseisremarkablyhomogenous.Itis
not a bad approximation to think of it as matter
and energy uniformly spread out. Because of Ein-
steins equation E=mc

there is for these purposes

nodiferencebetweenmatterandenergy.Teener-
getic photons contribute to the matter density of
theuniverse.Becauseoftheuniformity,theexpan-
sionisdescribedbyafunctionofthetimealone.All
the spatial dimensions scale with this function.
iU1viocosmoiocv :
Hencetodescribethetimelineoftheexpansionwe
havetoknowhowthisfunctionchangeswithtime.
Teexpansionwouldbefreeexceptthatgravitation
holdsitback.Becauseofgravitationtheexpansionof
theuniversedeceleratedthroughoutmostofitshis-
tory.However,thisexpansionisnowinanacceler-
ating phase, which means that some antigravita-
tionalforceisatwork.Tisisusuallyreferredtoas
darkenergy.Itsoriginisunclear.
Nowtotheneutrinos.Underpresentlaboratory
circumstances the rate for a reaction such as
e+ne+nthe collision of a neutrino with an
electronisextremelysmall.Butitisaverysensi-
tivefunctionoftheenergy.Iftheelectronsinvolved
areveryenergetic,astheywereintheearlyuniverse,
the rate is enhanced enormously. Te rate goes as
the ffh power of the electron temperature. If you
raisethetemperaturebyafactorof:o,thentherate
increasesbyafactorof:oo,ooo.Attheseearlyuni-
verse temperatures this rate was comparable to the
rate of collisions of photons and electrons. Tis
means that the neutrinos, electrons, and photons
were all at about the same temperature. Te early
universe was like a blackbody, which has a nearly
common temperature for all the objects inside it.
:,o v.s1iis
Hence the neutrinos contributed to the rate of ex-
pansion of the universe an amount comparable to
thatcontributedbythephotons.Temoretypesof
neutrinos there are, the greater this contribution.
Remarkably, this is something that can be mea-
sured.Tetoolisthecosmichelium.
At the present time, most of the cosmological
matter we observe is in the form of protons. Te
nextintotalmassishelium.Teratioofthemass
of the observed cosmic helium to the total mass,
mainlyprotons,isabouto.:,.Tereisasmallcon-
tributiontothetotalmassfromcosmologicaldeu-
terons,but,asIsaid,mostisinprotons.Teobject
of theory is to explain this number. To make he-
liumyouneedneutrons.Butthereareefectsthat
depleteneutrons.Tesimplesttoexplainisthein-
stabilityoftheneutron.Teneutrondecaysinjust
underffeenminutes.Tereisnothingthatcanbe
donetochangethis.Butthemorerapidlytheuni-
verseisexpanding,thecooleritbecomesbeforethis
decay time is reached. Hence there will be more
neutrons around at the crucial temperature, form-
ingdeuterons,andthustherewillbemorehelium
production. But, as I have said, the more types of
neutrinosyouhave,thefastertherateandthemore
iU1viocosmoiocv :,:
neutronstherewillbe.Onecanseefromthetheory
indetailhowtheratiodependsonthis,anduseits
valuetolimitthenumberoftypesofneutrinos.Te
resultisthatthebestftiswiththreefavors,which
is what our terrestrial experiments reveala re-
markableresult.
Afer they became too cold to interact rapidly,
the neutrinos expanded freely with the universe.
Today their temperature is slightly cooler that that
ofthephotons,whichisabout:.,degreesaboveab-
solutezero.Tereareabout::cosmicbackground
microwavephotonspercubiccentimetereverywhere
intheuniverse.Tesearewhataredetected.Onthe
other hand, there are about ::: neutrinos of each
favorpercubiccentimetereverywhereintheuni-
verse, and these cannot be detected. Tese neutri-
nosarewhatiscalledhotdarkmatterbecauseof
theirenergy.Teycannotbecapturedbygalaxies,
which,asweshallsee,isimportantinthesearchfor
themissingdarkmatter.
:,:
10
Squarks, Tachyons, and the Graviton
If we have learned anything from what has gone
before, it is that theorists speculations should be
takenseriouslyoratleastconsidered.
In::o,aferhehadcreatedhistheoryofgravi-
tation, Einstein made the following suggestion.
On analogy with the fact that accelerated charges
radiate electromagnetic waves, accelerated masses
should radiate gravitational waves. In Einsteins
theorythesegravitationalwavesproduceripplesin
space-time.Tatsuchradiationexistshasnow re-
ceived spectacular confrmation. In :, Joseph
HootonTaylorJr.andRussellHulsefoundasys-
temofbinarypulsars.Tesearemassivestarsthat
revolve around their common center of mass. Be-
causeoftheirmass,theyshouldradiategravitational
waveswithconsiderableintensity.Tismeansthat
they should be continually losing energy and that
thereforetheirorbitsshouldbeshrinking.Figure:o
showshowthisprogressesintime.Withthechange
inorbittheperiodofrevolutionalsochanges,and
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :,,
Einsteins theory tells us by how much. Tis pre-
dictionhasbeenconfrmed,whichcertainlymeans
thatgravitationalwavesexist.Nonetheless,itseems
desirable to confrm this with terrestrial experi-
ments. One of them is the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-WaveObservatory(LIGO).Itconsists
GeneralRelativityPrediction
1973 1980 1983 1990 1993 2000 2003
Year
C
u
m
u
l
a
t
i
v
e

S
h
i
f

o
f

P
e
r
i
a
s
t
r
o
n

T
i
m
e
(
s
)
0
-3
-10
-13
-20
-23
-30
-33
-40
Figure :o. Orbital change due to gravitational radiation. Graph
courtesyofJoelWeisberg,DavidNice,andJosephTaylor.
:, v.s1iis
of two long tubular arms in an L shape. A laser
emits a beam that is split so that a portion runs
downeacharmandshouldarrivesimultaneously
at the ends. If a gravitational wave is incident on
thedevice,italtersitslengthandchangesthesyn-
chronism.Itisthischangethattheexperimenters
havebeenlookingforsofarwithoutsuccess.
Withthecreationofthequantumtheoryitwas
naturaltotrytoftgravitationintothemix.Hence
theoristsimaginedagravitationalquantum,which
acquiredthenamegraviton.Propertiesofthegrav-
itoncanbegivensightunseen.Itmustbemassless,
because, like the electrostatic force, gravitation is
long-range. Tus it must move with the speed of
light.Itmustbeelectricallyneutral,forchargesare
notexchangedinagravitationalinteraction.Finally,
itmusthavespin:.Tishastodowithhowgravity
couplestomatterinEinsteinstheory.Butdoesthe
gravitonexist:
Freeman Dyson has given an argument that
showsthatsinglegravitonscannotbe detectedby
the LIGO. Tis is because to overcome the quan-
tum fuctuations that limit the accuracy of the
mea sure mentofthelengths,thedevicewouldhave
tobesomassivethatitwouldcollapseintoablack
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :,,
holeofitsownmaking.Perhapssomeotherdevice
might detect them, however, or perhaps, like the
quark,theymaybeunobservable.
AnumberofyearsagoIattendedalecturethat
Feynman gave at Columbia University. His theme
was to show, as he put it, how an ordinary guy
suchashimself notanEinstein mighthavedis-
covered Einsteins theory of gravitation. He drew
some diagrams showing graviton exchange and
extracted Einsteins predictions without any men-
tion of curved space and time. Quantum gravity
was simply a theory like all the others. Ten he
drew diagrams with the quantum corrections.
Tey were all infnite. Indeed, the number of in-
fnities in the theory is infnite. Te theory is not
renormalizable it makes no sense. Tis suggests
thatwetakestockofwhereweare.
As we have seen, quantum electrodynamics al-
lows us to make incredibly accurate calculations.
Onemightcomparetheaccuracyofcalculatingthe
electronmagneticmomenttotryingtomea surethe
distance from Los Angeles to New York to within
thewidthofahumanhair.Butwhiletheinfnities
havebeenshovedundertherug,theyarestillthere.
Testandardmodel,whichincludesthequarksand
:,o v.s1iis
gluons,theleptonsandtheweakmesonsWandZ,
aswellasquantumelectrodynamics,isinthesame
boat. One can calculate anything one needs to,
and one fnds agreement with experiment. If the
discovery of the Higgs boson is confrmed, then
thetheoryisinthatsensecomplete.
However, gravitation is in a diferent category.
Ononehand,thereisEinsteinsbeautifulclassical
theory of general relativity and gravitation, which
haspassedeverytestputtoit,fromtheanomalies
in the orbit of the planet Mercury to gravitational
radiation.Ontheotherhand,attemptstoquantize
itusingtraditionalmethodshavefailed.Tereisno
ruglargeenoughunderwhichtoputtheinfnities.
Something diferent is called for, and one pop u lar
candidateiswhatisknownasstringtheory.Numer-
ous books have been written at all levels on this,
sohereIamgoingtomakeonlyafewbriefpoints.
Te usual treatment of the quantum theory of
feldsof which quantum electrodynamics is an
examplesupposes that the particles in the equa-
tions are points in space and time. A trajectory of
such a particle is a one- dimensional line. Tis
squeezing down of the extension of the particles
has been suggested as the source of the infnities.
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :,,
Tussomephysicistsproposedtoreplacethepoint
particlesbytinyloopsofstring,makingthetrajec-
tories into tubes. Figure :: shows an example of
whatoneofthefound ersofthetheory,JohnSchwarz,
callsthepantsdiagram.Onthelefistheoldthe-
oryandontherightthestring version.Ontheright,
the particles are represented by the closed loops at
eitherendofthediagram.
Tese strings have tension, which would cause
them to collapse except that Heisenbergs uncer-
tainty principle wont allow it. But the strings can
have excited modes that correspond to diferent
particles.Tefrststringtheoryappliedonlytobo-
sons,whichmadeitseemabitacademic.However,
it was discovered that one of the bosons was a
Figure::. Tepantsdiagram.
:,8 v.s1iis
massless,chargelessbosonofspin:thatwasiden-
tifedwiththegraviton.Hencethereseemedtobea
roadtoaconsistenttheoryofquantumgravity.But
clearlywithoutfermionsthetheoryhadlimitedap-
plication.Tencamethenotionofsupersymmetry.
Te symmetries we are familiar with unite bo-
sons with bosons and fermions with fermions. An
exampleiswhatisknownasisotopicspin.Suppose
we lived in a world in which there were only the
strong interactions; all the other interactions were
turnedof.Inthatworlditwouldbeplausiblethat
theneutronandproton weretwostatesofthesame
particle. For example, they would have the same
mass. Te three pions would also collapse into a
degenerate triplet. Tis symmetry would manifest
itselfinthestronginteractionsamongtheseparti-
cles.Nowimaginethatweturnedtheotherinterac-
tionsbackon.Manifestationsoftheserelationships
would remain, for the symmetry breaking did not
destroy them completely. Prior to the work on
stringsitwassuggested that there might be super-
symmetries that related bosons and fermions,
thoughitwasrecognizedthatthesewouldnotbe
discernible among the particles we know. Tere
wouldhavetobeanewarrayof superparticlesthat
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :,
would share the symmetry. Tese particles were
givencutenamessuchassquarkandslepton.Itwas
realized that if you added supersymmetry to string
theory,youmightcomeupwithsomethingthathad
abearingontherealworld.
Tere weretwoimportantconsequencesofadd-
ing supersymmetry to string theory, of which at
least one was testable: that these new particles
should show up in experiments. In many of the
modelstheyhadmassesthat wereattainablebyex-
isting accelerators. So far none has shown up, and
someofthemodelshavebeenruledout.AsfarasI
know, there is no real argument for a maximum
massoftheseobjects,unlikeintheHiggscase.One
can always say that they are too massive to have
been produced in the existing accelerators. I do
notseeanymovementtowardbuildingstill- larger
accelerators, however; the Large Hadron Collider
may be the end of the line. In that case the only
hopeoffndingsuchparticlesisinouterspace,us-
ingsomesatelliteorother.
Tesecondconsequence,asfarasIcantell,re-
sists direct observation. All supersymmetric string
theories that have any chance of accommodating
whatweknowrequireextradimensions.Tatisto
:oo v.s1iis
say, they require more than three spatial dimen-
sions,althoughasarulethereisstillonetimedi-
mension.Ifwelookatthehistoryoftryingtounify
theforces,wecanstartin:o,withEinsteinsthe-
ory of special relativity. What Einstein recognized
wasthatelectricityandmagnetismweretwomani-
festations of the same force. Which manifestation
weexperiencedependsonourstateofmotionwith
respect to charged objects. At rest we may see a
pure electric feld, but once we are in motion a
magnetic feld appears. Afer Einstein created his
general theory of relativity and gravitation it was
naturaltoaskifthesetoocouldbeunifed.Tefrst
workonthissubjectwasdonebyTeodorKaluzain
:::.TiswasfollowedbytheworkofOskarKlein
in::o.Kleinsaidthattocarryouthisprogramhe
would need an extra spatial dimension, which we
are not aware of because it is curled up in a tiny
circle. Tis accomplishes the unifcation, albeit
perhaps with some loss of plausibility. But now
theoristsareafermuchbiggergame.Teywanta
theory of everythingall the particles and all the
interactions.Temodelsthatarenowinfavorhave
ten spatial dimensions and one time dimension.
Sevenofthesespatialdimensionsarenotvisible,at
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :o:
least not directly. I am reminded of what Robert
Oppenheimerwouldsayifsomeonecameintohis
omce in Princeton with a somewhat outr idea:
Imgladthattherearepeoplethinkingalongthose
lines.
Tere are two mysteries that have in common
the adjective dark dark matter and dark energy.
Tatmaybealltheyhaveincommon.Darkmatter
is matter that does not shine. It is probably com-
posed of particles, which may even be the super-
symmetricones.Darkenergyisdistributedallover
thecosmosuniformlyandindeedisresponsiblefor
somethinglike,:percentofthemass-energyofthe
universe.Inowwanttodiscusstheevidenceforthese
thingsandthemostpopularsuggestionsfortheres-
olutionofthesemysteries.
Te discovery of dark matter goes all the way
backtothe:,os.Galaxiesinclustersrotate.Tere
isaconnectionbetweenthekineticenergyofthese
rotations and the gravitational energy that keeps
themfromfyingapart.Tisconnectionisempiri-
cally violated in some galaxies, however, in which
thespeedofrotationofthestarsdoesnotfallofas
the distance from the center increases. It remains
uniform out to large distances beyond the visible
:o: v.s1iis
stars. Tis implies that there must be gravitating
massesthatarenotvisible.Teseinvisiblegravitat-
ingobjectsaccountforabout8,percentofthegrav-
itating matter. Tere is other evidence, but this by
itselfisprettyconvincing.Twothingsmustbetrue
ofwhateverthismatteris:itmustbequitemassive,
and its only signifcant interaction with anything
must be gravitational. If there was an electromag-
netic interaction, the stuf would shine. Tere is a
suggestionthatthismattermightconsistofweakly
interacting massive particles with some kind of
forcethatwehavenotseenbefore.Ihavenotedear-
lier that they cannot be ordinary neutrinos, since
these are too hot to be bound in galaxies. One
suggestionisthattheyaresterileneutrinos,which
aremassiveanddonothaveanyotherinteractions
thatarenotgravitational.Maybetheparticlesare,
as I said, of the supersymmetric kind. We are, if
I maysayso,inthedark.
Te history of dark energy goes back even fur-
therthanthatofdarkmatter.In::,Einsteinpub-
lishedwhatwasthefrstmodernpaperoncosmo-
logicaltheory,usinghistheoryofgeneralrelativity
and gravitation. He based it on two important
assumptions that were consistent with what was
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :o,
known empirically at the time. Te frst was that
theMilkyWaygalaxyrepresentedthelimitsofthe
universe.Terewerenostarsoutsideit.Tesecond
assumptionwasthatthesituationwasstatic.Tere
werepropermotionsamongthestars,butonthe
average there was no expansion or contraction of
the system as a whole. Einsteins general relativity
theory has as its frst approximation Newtonian
gravity.ButNewtonencounteredaparadoxwitha
similar model, so it is not surprising that Einstein
encounteredthesameparadox.
Suppose, Newton argued, that on the average
the mass of the universe was spread over it with
somedensity.Inevitablytherewouldbefuctuations,
if only because the matter was warm. Such a fuc-
tuation would create a local increase in the mass
somewhere.Butthismasswouldattractmoremass
gravitationally, and on and on. Te whole thing
would collapse someplace. To avoid this, Newton
assumedthattheuniversewasinfnite,sotherewas
noplacetosingleout.
Einsteinhadthesameproblem,butheresolved
itbyalteringhistheory.Einsteinstheoryisbuilton
the idea that its equations should have the same
form in all reference frames, including ones that
:o v.s1iis
accelerate.Tespecialtheoryofrelativitywasspe-
cialbecauseitappliedonlytoreferenceframesthat
weremovinguniformlywithrespecttoeachother.
ButtheequationthatEinsteinwrotedownwasnot
quite the most general one consistent with his as-
sumption. He could add a constant term. He did
not do this because there was no need, and if he
had,thetheorywouldnothavemorphedintoNew-
tons. But now he needed to, to keep his universe
static.Tisintroducedanewconstant,thecos-
mologicalconstant.Einsteinwasfreetochoosethe
sign and magnitude, and he chose them so as to
canceloutthegravitationalforceinhiscosmology.
Hisuniversewasstatic.
In the meantime, a Rus sian polymath named
Aleksander Friedmann had been considering in
the context of Einsteins original theory how the
scalefactorIdiscussedbeforemightevolveintime.
Hefoundthatthisdependedonthedensityofmat-
ter. You could have continuous expansion, a static
universe, or one that contracts. You might even
imagineonethatiscyclic,withanewBigBangre-
curringperiodically.Einsteinsfrstreactiontothis
wastosaythatitwaswrong.Subsequentlyhesaid
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :o,
that it was right but irrelevant since the universe
wasstatic.TencameEdwinHubble.
HubblewasanAmericanastronomerwhospent
most of his professional life at the Mount Wilson
Observatory near Pasadena, California. He was
abletotakeadvantageofwhatwasthenthelargest
telescopeintheworld.Firstheconfrmedthatthere
were galaxies outside the Milky Way. Ten in the
late ::os he discovered that the universe was ex-
panding.Hewasabletodeterminethedistanceto
someofthegalaxiesandobservedthatthefarther
awaytheywere,themoretheirlightwasshifedto
theredendofthespectrumaDopplershif.Tis
meant that they were receding with a speed that
increased with the distance from us. It took some
time to associate this discovery with Friedmanns
universe. Hubbles discovery has been confrmed
over and over again. Until :8 all the workers in
thisfeldwouldhavetoldyouthattheuniversewas
decelerating because the expansion was being
pulledbackbygravity.Butin:8itwasannounced
thatobservationsonsomesupernovaeshowedthat
in fact the universe is now accelerating and has
been doing so for the last , billion years. With
:oo v.s1iis
Hubbles discovery Einstein had stated that his
introduction of the cosmological constant was a
blunder.Butnowitseemsasifthatconstantmight
beback.
Indeed, one of the frst explanations of these
newdatawasthereintroductionof thecosmologi-
cal constant. Tings had changed since Einsteins
time, however. He had the luxury of choosing the
constanttosuithisneeds.Butnowithadtohavean
explanation. An explanation can be found in the
quantum theory of felds. It bears a family resem-
blancetohowtheHiggsbosongeneratesmass,but
in this case there is a terrible problem: the feld
theoriespredictaconstantthatisabout::oorders
of magnitude too large. One of the lessons of this
book is that if you fnd a numerical discrepancy
of thissize,theremustbeanexplanation,ofenin
terms of a new symmetry. Teorists have been
looking in vain for such an explanation, and once
againweareinthedark.

Te last particle I want to discuss is the tachyon.

It was so named by the late Gerald Feinberg, who
was a professor at Columbia. Tachus is Greek for
speedy, and if these particles are nothing else,
sqU.vxs,1.cuvos,.u1uicv.vi1o :o,
they are certainly that. Tey move faster than the
speedoflight.Indeed,theycannevermoveslower
thanthespeedoflight.Tespeedoflightinavac-
uum has a special role in relativity, in that every
observer,nomatterinwhatstateofrelativemotion,
mea sures the same speed. To put it another way,
you cantcatchupwithaphoton.Einsteinreferred
to this as the principle of constancy. When I frst
learned about it from Philipp Frank I was both
amazed and puzzled. Part of my puzzlement in-
volved how Einstein had ever thought of this. It
couldnothavebeenfromexperimentsonmoving
bodies and light, since any moving body that he
hadavailablemovedatacrawl.ForsometimeIdid
not understand Professor Franks answer, which
wasthattheratioofthephysicaldimensionsofan
electricfeldtoamagneticfeldisaconstant,with
thedimensionsofavelocitythatturnsouttobethe
speedoflight.
Terrible things happen to the equations of rela-
tivitywhenyoutrytomakeamassiveparticlemove
with the speed of light. On the other hand, if the
particle always moves faster than light, then you
can get away with it, but at a price. If you can use
thesetachyonstocarryinformation,thenyoucan
:o8 v.s1iis
reversecauseandefectifyouarenotcareful.Ifin
one system event A follows event B, then you can
fndanotherinwhichtheorderisreversed.Itdoes
not take much imagination to invent malign sce-
narios of all kinds. Feinberg got around this by
noting that you can arrange tachyons so that the
emissionofatachyonbackwardintimecanbere-
placed by the absorption of an antitachyon going
forwardintime.Hewassotakenbyallofthisthat
heevenparticipatedinanexperimenttotrytofnd
tachyonsandantitachyons,thoughwithoutsuccess.
On the other hand, in late :o:: a group of Italian
experimenters claimed that neutrinos produced at
CERN weremovingfasterthanlight.WhenIheard
aboutthisIrememberedEinsteinsreactioninthe
:,os when he was told that an experiment had
disproved the principle of relativity. He remarked,
Ramniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaf ist Er
nichtGod is sophisticated but not malicious.
Tatexperimentwasprovenwrong;sowasthisone.
:o
LEnvoi
Good mystery stories have a neat plot with a tidy
ending. Tis story is more like a series of nested
Russiandolls:insideeachonethereisanother.Ido
notbelieveweareattheend.
:,:
Appendix 1
Accelerators and Detectors
Te purpose of this appendix is to bring together
andamplifyathemethathasrecurredthroughout
thisbook.Toprobedeeperanddeeperintothein-
terior of matter, the tools used have become ever
moresophisticated.Ibeganworkinginthisfelda
halfcenturyago,andwhenIbeganthissortofevo-
lutionwouldhavebeendisregardedaswildlyspec-
ulative science fction. I wrote my Ph.D. thesis in
the mid- :,os. Te largest part of the work that I
had to do was numerical. Tis was done with a
Marchantcalculator,whichwaselectromechanical
andperformeditsarithmeticoperationsbymoving
gears. If you divided a number by zero, the ma-
chine kept grinding until the gears burned up. It
took me literally months to carry out this work.
WhenIhadfnisheditIdiscoveredthatafellowat
MIT had done a rather similar thesis. He too had
numerical work to do. But he had had the good
sensetocultivateagroupatMITthatwasbuilding
thelatestversionoftheWhirlwindcomputer,which
:,: .vviuix:
was the state of the art. It used vacuum tubes and
could pro cess about o,ooo instructions a second.
As I recall, it took about an afernoon to do his
work.Ofcourse,bypresent- daystandardsthisma-
chine was a dinosaur. Your laptop can probably
processahundredmillioninstructionsasecond.
In experimental elementary particle physics,
computers are used for much more than numerics.
Perhapsthemostimportantuseisinpatternrecog-
nition. In my day at the Harvard Cyclotron there
wereafewwomenemployedtoscantracksmadeon
photosandsortouttheinterestingevents.Isuppose
thattheremighthavebeensubstantiallylessthana
hundred photos involved in any experiment. Later,
asIwilldiscuss,theGargamellebubblechamberat
CERN, where an important discovery was made,
produced more than :oo,ooo tracks that had to be
scanned.Tiswasdonebycomputer.
InthebodyofthetextIhaveavoidedintroduc-
ingtheenergyandmassunitsthatarestandardfor
thissubject.Ididthisbecausetheseunitsaresofar
outside our daily experience. Instead I compared
masses of particles without ever telling you what
thesemassesare.ButinthisappendixIwanttobite
the bullet and introduce these units. I will begin
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :,,
with a unit we all knowthe watt. Te watt is a
unitofpower,energyperunitoftimepersecond,
forexample.Whenyourmeterisreaditgivesnum-
bersinkilowatt-hours.Tisistheelectricalenergy
you have purchased during the period between
meterreadings.Teenergyunitthatisusedindefn-
ingthewattisthejoule,namedaferthenineteenth-
centuryBritishphysicistJamesPrescottJoule.Te
wattisnamedaferJamesWatt,wholivedabitbe-
fore Joule. One watt is one joule per second. A
kilowatt-houris,.o:o
6
joules.
Voltage is the mea sure of the work you have to
do to move a unit of electric charge between two
pointsinanelectricfeld.Equivalently,itistheen-
ergygainedifyoureversethisprocess.Foroursub-
ject the important unit is the electron volt (eV).
Tis is the energy gained if an electron moves
across a voltage drop of one volt. It has a unit of
energyfor example, the joule. But in terms of
joules it is an absurdly small number. One elec-
tron volt equals :.o/:o,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo
joules (:.o:o
I9
joules).TatiswhyIdidnotin-
troduceitbefore.Itmakessenseonlyinthecontext
of elementary particle or atomic physics, where
things are naturally measured in these units. We
:, .vviuix:
willrunintomeV(whichisequivalentto:o
3
eV),
keV(:o
3
eV),MeV(:o
6
eV),GeV(:o
9
eV),andTeV
(:o
I2
eV).(InmydayaGeVwascalledaBeV,sothe
Bevatronwasdesignedtoaccelerateprotonstothis
kindofenergy.)
It is very con ve nient to use Einsteins E=mc

to
convertmassesintoenergies.Letmegiveanexam-
ple so you will see why. In grams the mass of the
electron is .:o,8,:o
3I
kilograms. Te speed of
light in meters per second is :,,:,,8m/s. You
mustsquarethisandmultiplybythemassinkilo-
gramstogetjoules.Tenyouusetheconversionof
joules to electron volts to get the mass- energy in
electronvolts.Ifyoudothis,youwillfndthatthe
mass- energy of the electron is o.,:o8:8MeV. It
ismucheasiertokeeptrackofahalfanMeVthan
the absurd number in grams. In the future I will
simply, as is customary in our business, refer to
mass-energyasthemass.
In this spirit the mass of the proton is
,8.:,:ooMeV, while the mass of the neutron is
,.,o,,,MeV. You will notice that the neutron
massexceedsthatoftheprotonbyenoughthatthe
decay into an electron is allowed by the conserva-
tionofenergy.Sincethepositiveandnegativemu-
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :,,
ons are antiparticles of each other, they have the
same mass, which is :o,.o,8,,:,MeV. Te positive
and negative pions are also antiparticles of each
other, so they have the same mass, which is
:,.,,o:8MeV. Te neutral pion is its own antipar-
ticle and has a mass of :,.,ooMeV. It is slightly
less massive. Te positive and negative K-mesons
arealsoantiparticlesofeachotherandhaveamass
of,.o,,MeV.Temassesoftheneutralkaonsare
tricky. As we have seen, the neutral kaons are not
antiparticlesofeachother.Testatesthathavedef-
initemassarenotthestatesthatarecreatedbutthe
states that have evolved in time. Tere is a small
mass diference between these states, and if we
ignore it, then the mass of the neutral kaon is
,.o:MeV.
Idonotintendtorunthroughthe wholelist;the
readercanrefertothetablesinthetext.ButIwant
togivethemassofatleastonenonmesonicstrange
particle, the
o
. Its mass is :::,.o8MeV. Finally I
will give the masses of the W and Z mesons. Te
chargedWparticlesareantiparticlesofeachother
and have a mass of 8o., GeV. (Note that we are
nowintheGeVrange.)TemassoftheZis:.:8,o
GeV. All the masses that I have given have an
:,o .vviuix:
uncertainty attached to them, which I have not
included.

Itisnotmyintentiontowriteanythinglikeacom-
plete history of particle accelerators. Tat would
require another book. Instead I will make a few
pointsthatwillgivethegeneralfavor.Iwouldar-
gue that the frst particle accelerators were the
cathoderaytubesusedbyJ. J.Tomsontodiscover
theelectron.Rememberthatthesewereevacuated
glass tubes with the negatively charged cathode at
one end and the positively charged anode at the
other. When the cathode is heated electrons are
emitted,andtheseareacceleratedbyelectricfelds,
sotheystriketheanodewithanenhancedvelocity.
RecallthatTomsonmeasuredthechangeintem-
peratureoftheanodeduetotheabsorptionofthis
kineticenergy.
InTomsonsexperimentsapotentialdiference
ofafewhundredvoltswasestablishedbetweenthe
cathode and the anode. By the very early :,os it
waspossibletoproduceafewhundredkilovoltsto
useintheaccelerationpro cess.Oneofthedevices
was invented by an American engineer named
Robert Van de Graf. Tis consisted of a metal
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :,,
spherethatcouldbechargeduptomillionsofvolts.
It is not clear what physics Van de Graf had in
mind.ButitisveryclearwhatphysicsthetwoBrit-
ish physicists John Cockcrof and Ernest Walton
hadinmind.Teywantedtoaccelerateprotonsto
an energy at which quantum mechanics predicted
they would penetrate nuclei. Tere is an electrical
energybarrierthatrepelstheprotons,butquantum
mechanicstellsusthatitcanbepenetratedbytun-
nelingthroughit.CockcrofandWaltonbuiltupa
potential diference of some 8oo kilovolts, and
in :,: they produced protons that were energetic
enough to penetrate the lithium nucleus, produc-
ing two alpha particles. All of these devices were
linearaccelerators.Tiswasabouttochange.
In::theAmericanphysicistErnestLawrence
read a paper by the Norwegian engineer Rolf
Widere.Tosayhereadthepaperisabitofaeu-
phemism, as Lawrence could not read German,
buthegotthegistbylookingatadiagram.Widere
wassuggestingthatacceleratingcouldbeachieved
in stages by alternating the polarity of the electric
felds.Lawrencerecruitedayoungelectronicsexpert
whobuiltaworkingmodelthatin:,:managedto
accelerate mercury ions to an energy of : million
:,8 .vviuix:
electronvolts.Tiswasstillalinearaccelerator,but
aboutthistimeLawrencehadanideaofgeniusthat
changed everything. Why not make the charged
particles move in circles, which could be done by
applying a magnetic feld at right angles to the or-
bitalplane: Aferasemicircleonecanapplyasuit-
ableelectricfeldtogivetheparticlesalittleboost
of speed. Afer the next semicircle the feldhasto
bereversedtogiveitanewboost.Lawrencesobser-
vation of genius was that the time it took for any
circularorbitundertheseconditionswasthesame
for all orbits. As the orbits got larger the particle
speededupinjustsuchawayastomakethetime
thesame.Tisvastlysimplifedtheelectronics.
Te frst successful model was built by one of
Lawrences postdoctoral students, M. Stanley Liv-
ingston. Te frst one that Livingston built was
about four and a half inches in diameter. He was
able to use vacuum tube technology to supply the
periodic changes in the electric feld. It cost about
$:, to build. It may have looked like a toy, but it
produced protons of 8okeV. Lawrence kept im-
proving and expanding his model, but the princi-
plesremainedthesame.TisincludedtheHarvard
cyclotron.BythetimeIlefin:,,theenergyhad
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :,
been boosted to about :o,MeV, too low to do any
real pion physics, but it facilitated some precision
nuclear physics experiments, and several genera-
tionsofphysicistsgottheirdegreesusingit.
A :ooMeV proton moves with a speed that is
somewhat less than half the speed of light. Tis
means that the efects of the theory of relativity,
which depend on the square of this number, can
largely be ignored. However, once you are inter-
estedinprotonsthathave:billionelectronvoltsof
kineticenergy,relativitycannolongerbeignored.
A particle that moves past you with a speed ap-
proaching the speed of light has an efective mass
thatislargerthanthemassofthesameparticlewhen
brought to rest. Tis changes everything when it
comes to accelerator design. You can no longer
useamagneticfeldofafxedstrengthtoguidethe
particlesnorafxed- frequencyelectricfeld.Tese
quantitiesmustbesynchronizedwiththeincreas-
ingspeedstotakeintoaccountthechangesinmass.
Te new generation of accelerators that were de-
signedwiththeseefectsinmindwereappropriately
calledsynchrotrons.
Te frst of these machines to come on line
was theCosmotronatBrookhaven,inthebuilding
:8o .vviuix:
whereIusedtoplaythetrumpetwhenthemachine
was not running. It had a seventy-fve-foot-
diameterringandreacheditsfullprotonbeamen-
ergy of ,., GeV in January :,,. It ran until :o8.
TenextwastheBevatroninBerkeley,whichwent
online in :, producing protons of o.: GeVjust
enoughenergytomakeantiprotons.Itwasdecom-
missionedin:,o.
Idonotintendtorunthroughthewholelist,al-
though it is not that long. Each machine was very
expensive theCosmotroncost$8millionin:,os
dollarsand they took years to build. Te step to
the next- level TeV accelerators took new technol-
ogy.Forexample,theTevatronatFermilab,which
went online in :8, and was fnally shut down for
lack of funds in :o::, took advantage of supercon-
ducting magnets, which replaced the earlier iron
magnets.Itproducedprotonsof8oGeV.
An entirely new kind of accelerator was intro-
duced in the :8os. Te prime example was the
LargeElectronPositron(LEP)Collider,whichwent
online at CERN in :8. Electrons and positrons
wereinjectedintoaringthatwas:,kilometersin
circumference. Tese had been preaccelerated in a
linearaccelerator.Tetwobeamswentinopposite
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :8:
directions around the ring. Te beams were fo-
cused so that they collided in four places around
theringwheredetectors wereinplace.Bythetime
the machine was shut down in :ooo it had pro-
ducedcollidingbeamsofsome:oGeV.Itssucces-
sor, the Large Hadron Collider, collides protons
andisexpectedtoreachanindividualbeamenergy
of,TeVwhenitisatfullstrength.Tesemachines
are all marvels of technology and bear about as
much resemblance to Lawrences frst cyclotron as
thedrawingsofLeonardosfyingmachineshaveto
ajetairliner.
Along with the advance in accelerator techno-
logytherewasaparalleladvancein detectortech-
nology. It is interesting to recall Rutherfords
experiment in which the atomic nucleus was dis-
covered.Alphaparticlesheliumnucleiproduced
in the decay of radon were made to collide with
thinmetalfoils.Oneusuallyreadsthatthesewere
gold foils, but several other metals were used as
well. Afer the alpha particle penetrated the foil it
struckazinc sulfdescreen,causingafashoflight.
Rutherfordsassistants,GeigerandMarsden,satin
a darkened room an hour or so before the experi-
ment started, to accustom their eyes. Tey then
:8: .vviuix:
lookedatthefashesthroughamicroscope.Tatis
collecting data retail. In the :,os, as I have men-
tioned in the text, Wilson cloud chambers were
used to detect the tracks of charged particles pro-
duced in cosmic rays. Tis way both the positron
and the muon were discovered. Afer the war
photographic emulsions were used to observe the
strangeparticlesincosmicrays.Tiswasalsocol-
lecting data retail. Once accelerators such as the
Cosmotronbeganproducingbeamsoftheseparti-
cles,anewmethodofdetectionwascalledfor,and
indeed, just at this time one was found. Tis was
the invention of the bubble chamber by the physi-
cistDonaldGlaser.
Tounderstandtheworkingsofthebubblecham-
ber,thinkofthephysicsofboiling.Sayyouputwa-
terinakettleandturnonthestove.Asyouincrease
the heat, the bonds that hold the liquid together
begintogivewayandthewaterbeginstovaporize.
Smallwatervaporbubblesareformed.Ifyoulook
attheforcesthatactonthebubbles,youcaniden-
tifythree.Insidethebubblethereisavaporpressure
thatactstotrytoexpandthebubble.Opposingthis
isthesurfacetensionofthebubbleandthepressure
fromtheambientenvironment.Tetemperatureat
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :8,
which these forces equalize is called the boiling
point. Te bubbles grow in size and are visible as
they rise to the surface. Te boiling point depends
ontheenvironmentinwhichtheheatingistaking
place.Ifyouhaveevercampedathighaltitude,you
will have observed how hard it is to boil an egg.
Tereislessatmospherepressingdownonthewa-
terandthetemperatureoftheboilingpointislow-
ered.WhatGlasermadeuseofisthefactthatsome
liquidscanbesuperheated theycanbemaintained
at least temporarily at temperatures above their
nominalboilingpoints.Inthebubblechamberthe
pressure on the liquid is reduced just as the parti-
clestobedetectedenterthechamber.Suchapar-
ticle deposits its energy on a bubble, causing it to
expandandbecomevisible.Whatoneseesisatrack
madebytheseparticles.Anearlyapplicationwasa
liquid hydrogen bubble chamber at the Bevatron
thatwasusedtodetecttheantiproton.
TemotherofallbubblechamberswastheGar-
gamelle.(Gargamelle,inventedbyRabelais, was the
giantess who was the mother of Gargantua.) Te
Gargamelle, which went into operation at CERN
in :,o, was flled with Freon, a relatively dense
liquid.Itwasdesignedtodetectneutrinosthatwere
:8 .vviuix:
produced by the Proton Synchrotron (PS), which
wasthepredecessortotheLEP.TePSaccelerated
protons to :, GeV, producing massive numbers of
pions, which produced neutrinos when they de-
cayed.TegreatdiscoverymadeattheGargamelle
tookplacein:,,,whenresearchersproducedevi-
denceforwhatbecameknownastheweakneutral
current. Tis was prior to the actual discovery of
the W and Z mesons, but it was essential for the
standard model that these exist. Te W mesons
carryelectricchargeandmediateprocessessuchas
the decay of the neutron, where it decays into a
positively charged proton. Te Z meson mediates
weakpro cessesinwhichthechargeisnotchanged.
Forexample,aneutrinocancollidewithanelectron,
transferringitsmomentumtoit.Tistypeofevent
theappearanceofenergeticelectronsiswhatthe
Gargamelle was looking for. Afer 8,,ooo events
wereanalyzedthere were:o:neutralcurrentevents
discovered.
TeGargamellerepresentedthehigh- watermark
ofthebubblechambers.Tistechnologyhadsome
disadvantages, including the fact that the super-
heatedphasehadtobereadyatpreciselythetimeof
theparticlecollisions,whichmadeitimpossibleto
.cciiiv.1ovs.uui1ic1ovs :8,
detect the reactions of very short-lived particles.
Bubble chambers have been replaced by detectors
such as the wire chamber, in which one or more
electricwiresaresuspendedinagas.Whenanion-
izingparticleentersthechamberitproducesacas-
cadeofchargedparticles,whichgatheronthewire,
makinganelectriccurrent.Temagnitudeofthis
current is a mea sure of the energy of the particle
beingdetected.
TeLHCillustrateseverymoderndetectortype.
Te circular tunnel in which they are contained
hasacircumferenceof:,miles.Tetunnelatsome
points is more than ,oo feet belowground. Tere
are six detectors sited around the tunnel. Te ma-
chine, the tunnels, and the detectors cost about
$ billion to build. Te ATLAS detector, for ex-
ample, is about half as big as the Notre Dame
CathedralinParisandweighsmorethantheEifel
Tower.Tereare,,ooophysicistsassociatedwithit.
Weareinarealmofexperimentalphysicsdiferent
fromanythingIcouldeverhaveimagined.
:8o
Appendix 2
Grand Unication
Inthefallof:,,IarrivedattheInstituteforAd-
vanced Study in Prince ton, New Jersey. I was told
that the director, Robert Oppenheimer, wanted to
seeme.Icouldnotimaginewhy,butthefrstthing
heaskedwas,Whatisnewandfrminphysics:I
wasrenderedmute.What everIknewthatwasnew
was not frm, and vice versa. Fortunately Oppen-
heimersphonerang,soIcouldescapewithoutan-
swering the question. In most of this book I have
emphasizedwhatisfrm.Areaderwhoisencoun-
teringthematerialforthefrsttimeis,Ithink,bet-
terofstayingawayfromspeculationsthathaveno
realexperimentalbaseandwhichmayturnoutto
be wrong. But in this appendix I want to discuss
somespeculations.Iwilltrytokeepthediscussion
atthesamelevelasthebodyofthetext,butitmay
becomeslightlymoretechnical.
FirstIwanttodealwiththenotionofcoupling
constant.WehaveseenthesimplestFeynmandia-
gramthatrepresentsthecollisionoftwoelectrons
cv.uUiiic.1io :8,
(Figure 8). But what I did not indicate in that dia-
gramwasthatateachplaceinthediagramwherea
virtualphotonisemittedorabsorbedthereshould
be a factor of ethe electric charge that measures
the strength of the interaction. Tis diagram in-
volvestwosuchplaces,sowewouldsaythatitisof
ordere

.Buttheethatenters herehasthecurious
dimensions of energy times distance. Tus one
cannotsayifitislargeorsmall.Ifonelooksmore
closely,onefndsthatwhatactuallyentersthedia-
gramise

/c,whereisPlancksconstantdivided
by:.Tisnumberisdimensionlessandisknown
asa.Itisapproximately:/:,,.Correctionstothis
diagram involve higher powers of a and hence
should be small. As I discussed in the text, they
seemed to be infnite until the whole post World
War II renormalization program showed how to
dealwiththem.
Wehaveseenthattherearefourforceswehave
todealwith.Teotherthreearealsocharacterized
by coupling constants, which are given approxi-
matelyby:
a
strong
:
a
electromagnetic
:/:,,
:88 .vviuix:
a
weak
:o
6
a
gravity
:o
39
Te fact that these constants have such diverse
valuesisonereasonmanytheoristsaredisconten-
tedwiththestandardmodel,whichiswhatIhave
beenexplaininginthebodyofthebook.Testan-
dard model with its quark color dynamics and its
unifcationoftheelectromagneticandweakinter-
actionsiscertainlyoneofthemostsuccessfulscien-
tifctheorieseverinvented.Itanswerseveryquestion
puttoit.Inawaythisisapity,forifitbrokedown
somewhere,wemightlearnsomething.Whatbothers
thesetheoristsisitssemiempiricalbasisanditslack
ofunifcation.Tomakethecomparisonwithexperi-
ment, one must insert values of things such as the
couplingconstants,whichinturnonetakesfrom ex-
periment.Moreover,thereisnoexplanationfor these
constants.Forexample,whyisthemagnitudeofthe
protonchargethesameasthatoftheelectroneven
thoughtheelectronwasprobablyproducedbythe
BigBangwhiletheprotonwascreated from bound
quarkslater:Wecouldposethechargequestionin
terms of quarks by asking why these have charges
thataresimplefractionsoftheprotoncharge.
cv.uUiiic.1io :8
Te unifcation that has been tried can be bro-
kenintotwoparts kinematicanddynamic.Inthe
kinematic part one enlarges the symmetry struc-
ture of the theory so that particles such as quarks
and electrons fall under the same rubric. Tis
helps to explain why these particles have related
charges, although it does not explain the value of,
say, a
electromagnetic
. It also does not explain why the
coupling constants for the diferent forces are so
verydiferent.Tis,asIwillnowattempttoargue,
isadynamicalproblem.Letusbeginwiththeelec-
tromagneticcase.
In the case of the electron-electron scattering
depictedintheFeynmandiagram,wesimplyputin
thevalueoftheelectronchargethatweobservein
experimentssuchasthis.Wecancallthisa
obs
.We
mightthinkthatwecanusethisvalueforanycolli-
sions no matter what the energy of the electrons.
Butquantummechanicstellsusthatthisisnotthe
case. Let us consider one of the electrons. Tese
considerationsapplymutatismutandistotheother.
Te space around this electron is a roiling sea of
virtual electron- positron pairs. Tese arise out of
the vacuum violating the conservation of energy
but for a time short enough to conform with the
:o .vviuix:
Heisenberg uncertainty principle relating energy
and time. Te violation of energy conservation is
roughlyoftheorderoftheelectronrestmassenergy
mc

,sotheallowedtimeisoftheorderof/mc

.If
we assume that these virtual particles move with
the speed of light, then during this time they will
moveadistanceoftheorderof/mc,theCompton
wavelengthoftheelectron,whichisabout:o
I3

meters. If the incident electron is not energetic

enoughtopenetratethisdistance,thechargeitsees
is afected by the presence of these virtual pairs.
Te positrons shield the bare charge, so the ob-
servedchargeislowerbyanamountthatdepends
on the energy. It is only when the energy is high
enough that the bare charge is relevant. Similar
considerations apply to the coupling constants for
the other forces. Te weak force produces fuctua-
tionsinvolvingtheweakmesons.Tequarkforceis
somewhat diferent because the binding increases
the farther away the quarks are from each other.
Figure::isagraphthatshowsinamodelcalcula-
tionhowthesechargesvarywithenergy.
Notethatthecouplingconstantsmergeatabout
:o
I6
GeV.Gravitationdoesnotquitework,soIhave
lefitout.Tomakeitworkatall,onemustgointo
cv.uUiiic.1io ::
higher dimensions and introduce a realm of new
particles,atleastsomeofwhichshouldbeacces-
sible at theLargeHadronCollider.Ifnoneisob-
served, we may have to go back to the drawing
board.
Figure::. Terunningcouplingconstants.
BehaviorofRunningCouplingConstants
CouplingConstantsMeet
atGUTScale
EnergyScale(GeV)
C
o
u
p
l
i
n
g

C
o
n
s
t
a
n
t
0.1
0.09
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.03
0.03
0.02
0.01
ZMass

1
10
2
10
15
0.04
::
Appendix 3
Neutrino Oscillations
Bruno Pontecorvo was born in Pisa in ::,. He
was something of a prodigy, and at age eighteen
he was admitted to Fermis course in Rome. He
then became a member of Fermis experimental
team,whereheremaineduntil:,o,whenhemoved
to Paris to join the group of Irne and Frdric
Joliot- Curie. Joliot- Curie had very lefish political
ideas.Infact,duringthewar,whenhetookpartin
the Re sis tance, he joined the Communist Party.
Pontecorvo had had no po liti cal interests, but, in-
fuenced by Joliot, he adopted some of the latters
ideas.In:,8theraciallawswereintroducedinIt-
aly,andPontecorvo,whowasJewish,couldnotre-
turn. He just escaped the German occupation of
ParisandemigratedtotheUnitedStates,wherehe
found employment with an oil company in Okla-
homa. He introduced neutron bombardment as a
methodofmeasuringthegeologyoftheboreholes
astheywerebeingdrilled.In:,hewasaskedto
join the reactor project in Canada, and in :8 he
iU1vioosciii.1ios :,
becameaBritishcitizenandworkedontheBritish
atomicweaponsprogram.OnAugust,o,:,o,ona
visittoStockholm,hewashelpedbySovietagents
todefecttoRussia.Terewasgreatconcernthathe
might transmit nuclear secrets, but apparently he
didnothaveanyessentialinformation.Tereisno
evidence that he worked on the Russian nuclear
weapons program, and indeed, he wrote articles
urgingtheendofnuclearweapons.Hediedin:,
inDubna.
Oneofhisinterestswastheneutrino.Infact,he
was the person who suggested the method of de-
tectingantineutrinosthatwasusedbyCowanand
Reinesintheirdiscovery.Toremindyou,theanti-
neutrinoifitisoftheelectrontypewillproduce
apositroninthereactionn
c
+pe
+
+n.Teposi-
tron rapidly annihilates with an atomic electron,
producingtwogammarays,andashorttimelater
theneutronhasadetectablenuclearreaction.Tis
sequenceiswhatisobservedinreactors.By:,,the
idea that there might be two types of neutrinos
muonandelectron hadacertainamountoftrac-
tion, although the experiment that confrmed this
wasdonefveyearslater.AsIrecall,almosteveryone
assumed that these two neutrinos were massless.
: .vviuix,
Oneattractivefeatureofthiswasthatitseemedto
giveanexplanationforthenonconservationofpar-
ity. Recall that a massless neutrino has a handed-
ness or chirality. Tis can be explained if the
interactions that produce these neutrinos have a
handedness symmetry, which is possible only if
theneutrinosaremassless.Butonecanreadilyper-
suade oneself that these interactions violate parity
conservation. Hence there seemed to be an elegant
connection among these ideas. But sometimes in
physicseleganceisaformoffoolsgold.
In :,, Gell-Mann and Pais published their pa-
peronneutralkaons.Itwillberecalledthatinthe
strangeness- conservingstronginteractions,allthe
production is of a neutral K-meson, which has a
defnite strangeness, or its antiparticle, which has
the opposite strangeness. But these two objects
can convert into each other by weak strangeness-
violatinginteractions.Henceif,say,aneutralkaon
is produced at some time, then at a later time it
willtransformitselfintoamixtureofitselfandits
antiparticle.Tismixtureevolvesintimethatis,
it oscillates and this is something that can be
studied experimentally. In :,, Pontecorvo asked
whetherthesamesortofthingmighthappenwith
iU1vioosciii.1ios :,
the neutrino. He was thinking at frst of only one
typeofneutrino,butaferthe:o:discoveryofthe
twoneutrinotypesheusedageneralizationofthis
idea. Tis was a very bold speculation, as in order
for this oscillation efect to take place, at least one
oftheneutrinoshadtohaveamass.Teparameter
that determines the oscillation is proportional to
m

em
=m

ne
m

nm
,thediferenceofthesquaresof
themasses.Ifbothmassesarethesame,theparam-
etervanishesandsodoestheefect.Atthetimethe
prejudicewasforzeromass,soIdonotthinkthis
ideahadawidefollowing.In:oPontecorvofol-
lowedthisupinapaperhewrotewiththeRus sian
physicist Vladimir Gribov. By this time it was
knownthatsomethingwaswrongwiththetheory
about neutrinos produced in the Sun: too few of
themarrivedontheEarth.GribovandPontecorvo
proposed an explanation in terms of neutrino os-
cillations.Tiswascertainlyapossibility,butIbe-
lieve most physicists thought there was probably
somethingwrongwiththesolarmodel.
Tefrstrealexperimentalevidenceforneutrino
oscillationswasannouncedin:8.Tiswasanex-
perimentdoneintheso-calledSuper-Kamiokande
observatory, which is located some ,,ooo feet
:o .vviuix,
belowground in a mine under Mount Kamioka in
Japan.Situatedthereisaverylargetankofverypure
water.Teideaisthatifanenergeticneutrinoejects
a charged particle, that particle can move faster
than the speed of light in water. Tis produces a
special kind of radiation known as Cherenkov
radiation,whichiswhatisobserved.Tedetector
issensitivetobothmuonsandelectronsandhence
should be able to detect both electron and muon
neutrinos.Tekindofneutrinoitwaslookingforis
known as atmospheric. Tese are the secondary
results of cosmic radiation. Te primary protons
produce pions, which decay into a muon neutrino
andamuon.Temuondecaysintoanelectron,an
electronneutrino,andamuonneutrino.Hencethe
Super-Kamiokande detector should see neutrinos
ofbothkinds.Itdid,buttheratiowaswrong:there
weretoofewmuonneutrinos.
Bythistimeitwasknownthatthere werethree
kinds of neutrinos, the third being the tau neu-
trino.Hencetherewerethreekindsofpossibleos-
cillations. Te muon-electron neutrino oscillation
wastoosmalltoaccountfortheefect.Henceithad
tobethemuon-tauneutrinooscillation.Tetauis
tooheavytobeproducedbythisneutrino;henceif
iU1vioosciii.1ios :,
theideaisright,acertainnumberofmuonneutri-
nos are put out of action. A confrmation is ob-
tainedby observinghowtheefectdependsonthe
directionfromwhichtheneutrinoiscoming.Some
neutrinos pass through thousands of miles of the
Earthbeforetheygettothedetector,andothersgo
only a short distance. Te efect of the oscillation
increases with the distance traveled by the neutri-
nos,andthisdirectionalefectwasobserved.Tere
isnodoubtthatthiswasanobservationofneutrino
oscillations.
Since :8 a variety of experiments have been
carriedout.Terewasseensolidevidenceforoscil-
lationsbetweentheelectronneutrinoandthemuon
neutrinoaswellasbetweenthemuonandtauneu-
trinos.Temasssquarediferencesfortheseneutri-
nosarecomparable.Whatwasmissingwasevidence
for oscillations between the electron and tau neu-
trinos.Tiswasproducedinthespringof:o::by
reactorexperimentsdoneseparatelybytwogroups
in Asia. Both of these experiments involve several
reactors. Tere is a Chinese- American collabora-
tionandaSouthKoreanexperiment.Tese experi-
mentsagreewitheachotherandshowthatthereis
anoscillationefectthatissmallerthanthatofthe
:8 .vviuix,
other two. Tese experiments only mea sure neu-
trinomasssquarediferences,sotheactualneutrino
masses are not known. Also what is not known is
theoriginofthesemasses,althoughsometheorists
thinkthatitmaybeaHiggsmechanism.Itispos-
sible that there is another family of extre mely
massive neutrinos that are conjugate to the ones
we know but which have no interactions except
gravitational. Possibly these objects are the dark
matter.
:
Ac know ledg ments
I have profted from discussions, some electronic,
withmanyofmyphysicscolleagues.Teyinclude
ElihuAbrahams,SteveAdler,LuisAlvarez-Gaume,
TomAppelquist,FrankClose,KyleCranmer,Free-
man Dyson, John Ellis, Ken Ford, Howard Haber,
PeterKaus,PierreRamond,JonRosner,andLincoln
Wolfenstein.IamgratefultotheAmerican Scien-
tistandHarvardUniversityPressfortheirinterest.
:o:
Index
accelerators.Seeparticle
accelerators
aceparticles,
alphadecay,,o
alphaparticles:discovery,::,
::;plutoniumdecay,,:;
Rutherfordsexperiment,
:o,,:8::8:
Anderson,Carl,,:,8:8:
angularmomentum:atom,::;
silveratom,:o;spin,:
anode,:,o
anomalousZeemanefect,
::,:,
antideuterons,,,
antielectrons,:
antikaon,ot:t,:,,
antimatter,,:,,
antineutrinos,,,,:,,,,:,
antineutrons,,,,o
antiparticles:about,,o,,;of
baryons,:;charm-
anticharmpair,::8;
cosmology,:,;of
deuterons,,,;ofelectrons,
:;Fermion,o:;of
K-mesons,,o,:,,;ofkaons,
:,,;ofmesons,8o,:;of
neutrinos,,,,:,,,,:,;of
neutrons,,,,o;ofphotons,
,:,,,;ofpi-mesons,,:,,,;
properties,:,,;ofprotons,
,:,,:,,,,,:8,;ofquarks,
:,
antiprotons:creation,,o;
decay,,o;detection,,:,,:,
,,,,,,,,:8,
antiquarks,:,
associatedproduction,8,:
ATLASdetector,::,:8
atmosphericneutrinos,
:o
atomicnucleus,o:,:,,,:8:
atomicspectra,::,::
atomicstructure:nuclear
atomicmodel,:o;plum
puddingmodel,::;
Rutherfordmodel,:o
atoms:angularmomentum,::;
natureof,:o::
Bahcall,John,,
Balmer,JohannJakob,:,
Balmerseries,:,
baryondecuplet,::::::
baryonnumber,,o,88,::,
::
baryons:antiparticle,:;::,;
quarkcontent,:o,:o,,and
quarks,:o,:o,,::o,:8
:o: iuix
Becquerel,Henri,,8
betadecay,,o,,,,,,:,:,o
betaparticle,,:
Bevatron(LawrenceBerkeley
NationalLaboratory),,,,,
:::,:,
BigBang,:o:8
binarypulsars,:,:
blackholes,:8,:,:,,
blackbodyradiation,,:,,:,:,
blackbodyspectrum,,:
Blackett,Patrick,o,
Block,Martin,,8
Block,Richard,:::
Bohr,Niels,:,:8,:,:o,,:,,:,
:o,:o,,::
boilingpoint,bubblechamber,
:8,
Bose,SatyendraNath,::,
Bose-Einsteinparticles,
:o,:oo
bosons:discovery,::,;Higgs
bosons,o,::,:,,:o,::;
Nambu-Goldstonebosons,
::8;WandZ,:,:,:,,::,
:,,,:8
bottomquarks,::,,::8
BrookhavenNational
Laboratory,8,8,8o,:::,
::,
bubblechamber:disadvan-
tages,:8:8,;Gargamelle
bubblechamber,:,:,:8,:8;
history,88,,:8::8,
Butler,C.C.,88,
cadmiumatoms,::
Cartan,Elie,::o
cathoderayparticles,
Tomsonsexperiment,
8,o,:,o
cathoderaytubes,8,o,:,o
cathoderays,o,8,,,o
cavityradiation,,:
CERN,Geneva:accelerators,
:,;Gargamellebubble
chamber,:,:,:8,:8;Higgs
discovery,:;Large
ElectronPositron(LEP)
Collider,:o,:8o,:8;Large
HadronCollider(LHC),8o,
:,,:o,:,,:8:,:8,::;
quarks,:oo;WandZ
discovery,:,:
Chadwick,James,,:,,::,,
:,,,,,o,
Chadwicksexperiment,
:::,
charm,::o
charm-anticharmpair,::8
charmquarks,::,
chemicalelements:atomic
spectra,::;periodictable,
:o,
chemistsatom,:o:
Cherenkovradiation,:o
chirality,:
classicalelectrodynamics,
:o
cloudchamber:history,8o8:,
8o;photosfrom,8:,8,8;
iuix :o,
Wilsoncloudchamber,
8o8:,:8:
CMS,::
COBEsatellite.SeeCosmic
BackgroundExplorer
(COBE)satellite
Cockcrof,John,:,,
colors,::,,:,o,:88
commutationrelation,::o
Compton,ArthurH.,:,,o
Comptonwavelength,:o
computers,:,::,:
conservationofbaryon
number,,o,::
conservationofcharm,::o
conservationofenergy,,o,o,
constancy,:o,
constituentquarks,:o:
corpuscles,,o
CosmicBackgroundExplorer
(COBE)satellite,,:
cosmicrays,,:,,8,:8:
cosmologicalconstant,:o,
:oo
cosmology:about,:o,:,
:,o,:o,;BigBang,:o:8;
neutrinos,:,,::,:
Cosmotron(Brookhaven
NationalLaboratory),
8o8,,88,:,:8o,:8:
Coulomb,Charles-Augustin
de,o,o
couplingconstants,:8o,
:8,:88,:o
Cowan,Clyde,,,,,,:,::
Cowan-Reinesexperiment,
,
Crick,Francis,::
currentquarks,:o:
cyclotrons,,,,:,,,:,8
D-meson,::o
Dalitz,Richard,,,,o
darkenergy,:,:o:,:o::o,
darkmatter,:,,:o::o:,:8
Davis,Ray,,
deBrogliewaves,:8:
decuplets,:::
deuterium,,o
deuterons,,o,,,:8,:,o
Dirac,Paul,,o,:,,:,o:,,
Diracequation,,o,:,o
DNA,geneticcode,::::o
Dopplershif,:o,
downquarks,,,:o
Dyson,Freeman,:,,,:,8,
:,
Ehrenfest,Paul,:o
EightfoldWay(Gell-Mann),
,,,,::,::,::,
Einstein,Albert:bosons,::,;
cosmologicalconstant,:o;
oncosmology,:o:;general
relativity,::,;
gravitation,:,:,:,,,:,;on
Planckswork,,;principle
ofconstancy,:o,;relativity,
:,,o,:oo,:o,
Einsteinsequation,:,
:o iuix
electriccharge,quarks,:o
electrodynamics,::,:,o
electromagneticforce,8,,:o:
electron-electronscattering,:8
electronneutrinos,,
electronorbits,:o:o,
electronvolts(unit),:,,:,
electrons:antiparticle,:;
andatomicstructure,o:,
:o:o,;Compton
wavelength,:o;cosmology,
:,;Diracequation,,o;
discovery,::,o,,o;
energeticelectrons,:8;as
Fermi-Diracparticles,:oo;
forcebetween:electrons,
o,;leptonnumber,:;
magneticproperties,:,o;
mass,:,;mass-energy,
:,;orbits,:o:o,;and
positrons,o:,:,;spectral
lines,:,,,:;spin,:,:,,:o
electroweaktheory,:,
elementaryparticles,quark
model,8
energeticelectrons,:8
energylevels,:,,::8,::,
energyunits,:,:
equationsofrelativity,:o,
etaparticle,:::
evenintrinsicparity,,o
exchangeparticles,:o:
exclusionprinciple,:oo
expansionoftheuniverse,
:o,:,:,o,:o,
Feinberg,Gerald,:oo,:o,
Fermi,Enrico:antiparticles,
o:;fermions,::,;
neutrons,:8,,,,:::,;
nuclearfssion,:;
pi-mesons,o;weakforce,
:,o
Fermi-Diracparticles,:oo
Fermilab,:o
fermions,::,
Feynman,Richard,,8,:oo,
:,,,:,,
Feynmandiagrams,o,,
:,,:,8,:8o:8,
Frank,Philipp,,,,,,:o,
Franken,Peter,8
Fraser,RonaldG.J.,::
Friedmann,Aleksander,:o
fundamentalforces:standard
model,:,,,:8,:88;
supersymmetry,:,8,:,
Furth,HaroldP.,,,,
gammadecay,,o,:
gammaradiation,,o
gammaraychannel,::
gammarays:cosmology,,,:,;
asdecayproduct,,:,,,:,o,
Gamow,George,:o::o,,:o,
::8::o
Gargamellebubblechamber,
:,:,:8,:8
Geiger,Hans,:o,::,:8:
Gell-Mann,Murray:about,
:o,:o8,:::;baryons,::,;
iuix :o,
EightfoldWay,,;
kaons,:;Liealgebra,
:o::o;quarks,,:oo,:o:;
strangeness,8o,:;up,
down,andstrangeobjects,
,
generaltheoryofrelativityand
gravitation,:oo,:o:,:o,
geneticcode,::::o
Gerlach,Walther,:
Gev(unit),:,
Gilbert,Walter,::8
Glaser,Donald,:8:
Glashow,Sheldon,::::,
Glauber,Roy,:,
gloriousrevolutionof:,o,
,,,o,,,o
gluons,:o:,:,o,:,
Goldstone,Jefrey,::8
Goudsmit,Samuel,:o
gravitation:about,8,,:o:,:,o,
:,:,:,o;Einsteinon,:,:,:,,;
expansionofuniverse,:;
quantumtheory,:,
gravitationalwaves,:,::,
gravitons:detection,:,o,
:, :,,;properties,:,;spin,
:,8
gravity,quantumgravity,:,8,
:,,,:,8
Greenberg,O.W.,::,
Gribov,Vladimir,:,
hadrons,:o
Han,Moo-Young,::,
Harvardcyclotron,,,,:,,,:,8
heavyquantum,oo,,oo
Heisenberg,Werner,:,,o,,o,,
:,
Heisenberguncertainty
principle,o,,:,,,:o
helium:cosmology,:8,:,o;
discovery,::
heliumatom,groundstate,
:o,
heliumnucleus,,:
Hess,Victor,,8,
Heuristic,useofterm,,
Higgs,Peter,::8,::
Higgsbosons:decay,:o::;
discovery,o,::,:;mass,
:o,:,:,.See alsoJ/psi
particle
high-energyaccelerator,,o
hotdarkmatter,:,:
Hubble,Edwin,:o,
Hulse,Russell,:,:
hydrogenatom,energylevels,
:,o
Iliopoulos,John,::o
infationoftheuniverse,:o,
:
intrinsicparity,,o,::
isotopes,:o,::,:8
isotopicspin,:,8
J/psiparticle(J/):charm-
anticharmpair,::8;decay,
::,;discovery,::,
:oo iuix
Joliot-Curie,Frdric,:,:,
::
Joliot-Curie,Irne,:,:,::
Jona-Lasinio,Giovanni,::o
joule(unit),:,,,:,
Joyce,James,
K-mesons:about,:,,;
antiparticle,,o,:,,;
creation,88;decay,:;
discovery,8o;mass,::,;
neutral,:;octet,:::;
productofdecay,::,;
strangeness,8
Kaluza,Teodor,:oo
kaons,,,;antiparticle,:,,;
mass,:,,;neutralkaons,
:,,,:
kinetictheory,,,
Klein,Abe,o8,o
Klein,Oskar,::,,:oo
Kronig,Ralph,:,:,
Lamb,Willis,:,o
Lambshif,:,o
lambdaparticle(
0
),8,,,:,,
Landau,Lev,::
Land,Alfred,::,
LargeElectronPositron(LEP)
Collider,:o,:8o,:8
LargeHadronCollider(LHC),
8o,:,,:o,:,,:8:,:8,
::
LaserInterferometer
Gravitational-Wave
Observatory(LIGO),
:,,:,
Lawrence,Ernest,,,,:,, :,8
LawrenceBerkeleyNational
Laboratory,Bevatron,
,,,,:::,:,
Lederman,Leon,:,::8
Lee,TsungDao,,8,,,,
leptonchannels,::
leptonnumber,::
leptons,:;cosmology,:,
Lewis,G.N.,,o,,
Liealgebras,::o:::
light:photons,,o,:,,,,o,,
o,,:,::;speed,:o,
LIGO.SeeLaserInterferom-
eterGravitational-Wave
Observatory
linearaccelerators,:,,
Livingstone,M.Stanley,:,8
Maiani,Luciano,::o
Marchantcalculator,:,:
Marsden,Ernest,:o,::,:8:
mass:ofbaryons,::,;
conversionintoenergy,:,;
ofelectrons,:,;ofHiggs
bosons,:,,:o,:,:,;of
isotopes,::;ofK-mesons,
::,;ofkaons,:,,;of
neutrinos,o,:,,::,;of
neutrons,o,,:,;ofphotons,
o;ofpions,o,;ofprotons,
o,,:,;ofsigmaparticles,
:,,;ofWandZbosons,:,,
iuix :o,
massunits,:,:
masslessneutrinos,:,:
masslessphotons,::
matter:darkmatter,:,,
:o::o:,:8;hotdark
matter,:,:
mesonoctet,:::
mesons:antiparticles,8o,:;
decay,::o;discovery,o,;
properties,:,,;andquarks,
:o,::o,:,.See alsobosons
mesotrons,8:
mev(unit),:,
Mev(unit),:,
mirrorsymmetry,,o
moderators,:
mu-mesons,oo,8:
multiplets,:::,::,
muon-electronneutrino
oscillation,:o
muonneutrinos,
muon-tauneutrinooscillation,
:o
muons:cosmology,:,;decay,
oo;decayofpionsand,o,;
discovery,o:o:,oo,8:,
:8:,:,;mass,:;properties,
:,:,,
Nambu,Yoichiro,::,,::o,::,,
::8
Nambu-Goldstonebosons,
::8
Neddermeyer,Seth,8:
neutralK-mesons,:
neutralkaons,:,,,:
neutrinos:antiparticles,,,,:,
,,,:,;atmospheric,:o;
betadecayand,,;chirality,
:;cosmology,:,,::,:;
discovery,,,,,o;mass,o,
:,,::,;massless,
:,:;muonneutrinos,
;oscillations,:,:8;
piondecayand,o,;solar
neutrinos,,;spin,o;
sterileneutrinos,:o:;
tauneutrinos,:o;types,
:
neutrons:angularmomentum,
:,;antiparticle,,,,o;
atomicstructure,o,;baryon
number,::;cosmology,:,o;
Cowan-Reinesexperiment,
,;decay,,;discovery,:,;
lifetime,o;mass,o,,:,;
properties,,o,,;
strangeness,8,,
newquantumtheory,:,
Newton,SirIsaac,:o,
Nishijima,Kazuhiko,8
Nishina,Yoshio,:,
nitrogen-:,:,,:,
normalZeemanefect,::
nuclearatomicmodel,:o
nuclearfssion,:,:,:
nuclearfusion,,
nuclearreactors,:,,,
nucleus,electronorbits,
:o:o,
:o8 iuix
octet,:::,::,::
oddintrinsicparity,,o
Okubo,Susumu,::,
oldquantumtheory,:,,:8,
::,:,
omegaminusparticle(

),8,
:o,,:::,:::
Oppenheimer,Robert,::,:o:,
:8o
orbitalangularmomentum,
:
orbits,quantization,::
oscillations,:,,:o:8
Preactor,,,
Pais,Abraham,:,:
pantsdiagram,:,,
parastastics,::,
parity,,o,,;Glorious
Revolutionand,,o,,;
intrinsic,,o,::;sourcesof,
,o;violation,,,:,o
paritynonconservation,,8
paritysymmetry,,
paritytransformation,,,
parityviolation,,,:,o
particleaccelerators:about,
:,:o;Bevatron,,,,,
:::,:,,;Cosmotron,8o8,,
88,:,:8o,:8:;history,
:,o:8:,:8;LargeElectron
Positron(LEP)Collider,:o,
:8o,:8;LargeHadron
Collider(LHC),8o,:,,:o,
:,,:8:,:8,::;linear
accelerators,:,,;Stanford
LinearAccelerator,:o,;
StanfordLinearCollider,
:o,:o;synchrotrons,
:,:8o;Tevatron,:o,:8o
particlecolliders:Large
ElectronPositron(LEP)
Collider,:o,:8o,:8;Large
HadronCollider,8o,:,,
:o,:,,:8:;StanfordLinear
Collider,:o,:o
particledetectors:ATLAS
detector,::,:8;bubble
chamber,88,,:,:,:8::8,;
cloudchamber,8o8:,
8,8,8o,:8:;CMS,::;
emulsions,:8:
Pauli,Wolfgang:about,::,:,,
:,,:;electronmomentum,
,o;neutrino,,o,,:,,,,,
o,,o;quantumelectrody-
namics,:,;relativity,:;
shellsinnuclearstructure,
:o,:o,;spin,:,;Zeeman
efect,::
Pauliexclusionprinciple,
:oo
periodictable,:o,
photoelectricefect,,o
photographicemulsions,:8:
photons:antiparticles,,:,,,;
discovery,,o,:,,,;mass,
o;massless,::;virtual,o,,
:8,
physicistsatom,:o:
iuix :o
pidecay,:
pi-mesons:antiparticles,,:,,,;
decay,8,;asdecayproducts,
8,8o;discovery,o,;
strangeness,8;structure,
o
pions:asBose-Einstein
particle,:o,:oo;asdecay
product,,8;discovery,o:,
o,,8:8,;leptonnumber,
:;mass,o,;octet,:::;
parity,,o;properties,:,,;
strongforce,:o:
Planck,Erwin,,,
Planck,Max,,o,,:,,:,,,,
Plancksconstant,o,
Planckslaw,,o
plumpuddingmodel,::
plutonium,,:
Pontecorvo,Bruno,:::,,
::,
positiveelectrons,,
positrons:cloudchamber
photographs,8o8:;
discovery,,:,:8:;and
electrons,o:
principleofconstancy,:o,
ProtonSynchrotron,:8
protons:angularmomentum,
:,;antiprotons,,:,,:,,,,,
:8,;andatomicstructure,
o:;baryonnumber,::;
cosmology,:,o;discovery,
::,,o;hadrons,:o;
isotopes,:,;mass,o,,:,;
properties,,;strangeness,
8,,
psiparticle.SeeJ/psiparticle
quanta,,,,,,,,o;heavy
quantum,oo,,oo
quantizationoforbits,::
quantumelectrodynamics,,,,
:,,:,,,:,o,:,8,:,,,:,o
quantumgravity,:,8,:,,,:,8
quantummechanics,::o,:8
quantumtheory,:,,:8,:,,o,;
gravitation,:,
quantumtheoryoffelds,:,o
quarks:antiparticles,:,;
baryonnumber,::,
baryonsand,:o,:o,,::o,
:8;bottom,charm,and
top,::,,::8;andcheese,;
color,::,,:,o,:88;
cosmology,:,;discovery,
:o,,:o;andexclusion
principle,:oo:o,;mesons
and,:o,::o,:,;up,down,
andstrange,,:o,::
Rabi,I.I.,oo,o,
radio,8
radioactivity,,8
radium,decay,::
Reines,Fred,,,,,,:,::
relativity,:,,:,,o,:o,,:,
renormalization,:,8,:8,
Retherford,Robert,:,o
Richter,Burton,::,
::o iuix
Rochester,G.D.,88,
Rosenthal,Schneider,Ilse,
:,
Rubbia,Carlo,:,,
ruleofassociatedproduction,
8,:
Rutherford,Ernest,:o,::,:o,
,o,o,:o,,::,:,,,:,,
Rutherfordscattering,::,
:,,
Rutherfordsexperiment,:8:
Sakata,Shoichi,,,,
scalefactor,:o
Schwartz,Melvin,:
Schwarz,John,:,,
Schwinger,Julian,,,o8,:,,
seasons,origin,:
Segr,Emilio,:
Serber,Robert,,o
shells,:o
sigmaparticles,:,,

0
,88,8
SLAC.SeeStanfordLinear
Accelerator
slepton,:,
Soddy,Frederick,:o,::
solarneutrinos,,
Sommerfeld,Arnold,:
spacequantization,:o
space-time,:,:
specialrelativity,:oo,:o
spectra:atomicspectra,::,
::;blackbodyspectrum,,:;
ofelectrons,:,,,:
speedoflight,:o,
spin:about,:,,:8;ofelectrons,
:,:,,:o;ofgravitons,:,8;
isotopicspin,:,8;of
neutrinos,o;Paulion,:,
squark,:,
standardmodel,:,,,:8,
:88
StanfordLinearAccelerator
(SLAC),:o,
StanfordLinearCollider,
:o,:o
Steinberger,Jack,:
sterileneutrinos,:o:
Stern,Otto,:8:,:o
Stern-Gerlachexperiment,
:o
strangequarks,,,:o
strangeness:ofK-mesons,8,
:;ofneutrons,8;of
pi-mesons,8;ofprotons,
8
stringtheory,:,
strongforce,8,,:o:,::
SU(,),:::
Sun,,
Super-Kamoikandeobserva-
tory,:,:o
SuperProtonSynchrotron
(SPS),:,:
supersymmetry,:,8,:,
symmetry,::o,:,8
symmetrybreaking,::o,:,8
synchrotrons,:,:,:,:8o,
:8
iuix :::
tHoof,Gerardus,:,
tachyons,:oo:o8
tauneutrinos,:o
tauparticles,,,
Taylor,JosephHooton,Jr.,
:,:
Teller,Edward,o,
Tevatron,:o,:8o
theoryofeverything,::,:oo
theoryofgeneralrelativityand
gravitation,:oo,:o:,:o,
theoryofnuclearforces,o,
theoryofquantumgravity,:,8,
:,,,:,8
theoryofrelativity,:,
theoryofspecialrelativity,
:oo,:o
theoryofweakinteractions,
:,8:,
thetaparticles,,,
Tomson,J.J.,::,:,,o,:,o
Tomsonsexperiment,
8,o
Ting,Samuel,::,
Todd,Margaret,:o
Tomonaga,Sin-Itiro,:,,
topquarks,::,,::8
triplets,:::
Uhlenbeck,George,:o
uncertaintyprinciple,o,,:,,,
:o
unifcation,:88,:8
universe:BigBang,:o:8;
binarypulsars,:,:;dark
energy,:,:o:,:o::o,;
darkmatter,:,,:o::o:,
:8;expansion,:o,:,:,o,
:o,;homogeneity,:8;hot
darkmatter,:,:;Hubbleon,
:o,;originof,:o:8
upquarks,,,:o,::
Updike,John,,,
upsilonmeson,::8
uranium,:
Vparticles,8o
VanAllenBelt,,,
VandeGraf,Robert,
:,o:,,
Veltman,Martinus,:,
Villard,Paul,,o
virtualphotons,o,,:8,
voltage,:,,
Wbosons,:,:,:,;decay,::,
:8;mass,:,,
Wmesons.SeeWbosons
Walton,Ernest,:,,
Watson,James,::
watt(unit),:,,
weakforce,8,,:,o
weakinteractions,:,8:,
Weinberg,Steven,::,:,
Weisskopf,VictorVicki,:,
Weyl,Hermann,::
Whirlwindcomputer,:,::,:
Widere,Rolf,:,,
Wien,Wilhelm,,:,:
Wiendistribution,,:,:,,,,
::: iuix
Wigner,Eugene,::
Wigner-Weylsymmetry,::,
Wigner-Weylsymmetry
breaking,::o
Wilson,Charles,8o
Wilsoncloudchamber,:8:

0
,8
Yang,ChenNing,,8,,,o
Yukawa,Hideki,o:o,,o,
oo,o,,8:
Yukawasparticle,o,,8:
Zbosons:about,:,:,:,;decay,
::,:8;mass,:,,
Zmesons.SeeZbosons
Zeeman,Pieter,::
Zeemanefect,::,:,
Zweig,George,,:oo