CP symmetry violation

JUL 01, 1982

In an informal discussion that grew out of a recent talk to physics teachers in Chicago, the codiscoverer of CP asymmetry recalls the circumstances of the observation and discusses its implications.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2915169

James W. Cronin

Margaret Stautberg Greenwood

Sixteen years before the discovery of charge‐conjugation–parity nonconservation in the decay of K mesons, a very fine high‐school physics teacher got me interested in physics. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have been interested in it anyway, but nevertheless he was a remarkable gentleman in a high school in Dallas, Texas. I think high‐school physics teachers continue to play a crucial role today, so I want to make one or two remarks about physics teaching before I describe the fascinating behavior of K mesons and discuss some of the historical and human aspects of the research that Val Fitch and I did on their decay.

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References

1. Chicago Tribune, 30 November 1980, sec. 2, page 1.
2. M. Gell‐Mann, A. Pais, Phys. Rev. 97, 1387 (1955).
3. Nobel acceptance speeches: V. L. Fitch, Rev. Mod. Phys. 53, 367 (1981);
J. W. Cronin, Rev. Mod. Phys. 53, 373 (1981).

More about the authors

James W. Cronin, University of Chicago.

Margaret Stautberg Greenwood, DePaul University, Chicago.