When is a particle?

JUN 01, 1978

Particle physics, like poetry, no longer hews to its former rigid rules, hence the standard for accepting quarks as elementary constituents is less severe than the neutrino’s was in the 1930’s—in fact, we may never see a quark.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2995068

Sidney D. Drell

Man’s effort to understand what we and our world are made of is one of the greatest adventure stories of the human race. It dates from the beginning of recorded history. Science first flourished 2500 years ago with the quest of the early Greek philosophers for an underlying unity to the rich diversity observed in world around them. They realized that the search for an understanding of Nature at a fundamental level in terms of basic processes and constituents necessarily carried them beyond the sensory world of appearance.

This article is only available in PDF format

References

1. M. Gell‐Mann, Phys. Lett. 8, 214 (1964); https://doi.org/PHLTAM
G. Zweig, CERN Preprints TH401, 412 (1964).
2. C. S. Wu, in Theoretical Physics in the Twentieth Century, A Memorial Volume to Wolfgang Pauli (M. Fierz, V. F. Weisskopf, eds.), Interscience (1960), page 249.
3. N. Bohr, J. Chem. Soc., 349 (1932).
4. J. Chadwick, Proc. Roy. Soc. A 136, 692 (1932).
5. E. Fermi, Z. Phys. 88, 161 (1934); https://doi.org/ZEPYAA
E. Fermi, Ric. Sci. 2, Part 12 (1933).
6. C. W. Sherwin, Phys. Rev. 73, 1219 (1948); https://doi.org/PHRVAO
C. W. Sherwin, 75, 1799 (1948); https://doi.org/PHRVAO , Phys. Rev.
C. W. Sherwin, 82, 52 (1951).https://doi.org/PHRVAO , Phys. Rev.
7. C. L. Cowan, F. Reines, F. B. Harrison, H. W. Kruse, A. D. McGuire, Science 124, 103 (1956).https://doi.org/SCIEAS
8. L. W. Jones, Rev. Mod. Phys. 49, 717 (1977).https://doi.org/RMPHAT
9. Reference 3, page 384.
10. R. L. Jaffe, Nature 268, 201 (1977).https://doi.org/NATUAS
11. J. I. Friedman, H. Kendall, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Sci. 22, 203 (1972).https://doi.org/ARNUA8
12. F. Schwitters, Scientific American, April 1977, page 56; W. K. H. Panofsky, talk presented at the Centennial Meeting of the Mathematical and Physical Societies of Japan (Tokyo, 10 October 1977), SLAC‐PUB‐2025, Stanford, Calif.
13. S. L. Glashow, Scientific American, April 1975, page 38.
14. Y. Nambu, Scientific American, May 1976, page 48.
15. S. Weinberg, Scientific American, January 1974, page 50;
E. Leader, P. G. Williams, Nature 257, 93 (1975).https://doi.org/NATUAS
16. S. D. Drell, Daedalus, March 1977, page 15.
17. W. Heisenberg, PHYSICS TODAY, March 1976, page 39.
18. J. H. Gaisser, T. K. Gaisser, Am. J. Phys. 45, 439 (1977).https://doi.org/AJPIAS
19. Homer, The Odyssey, book 5.

More about the authors

Sidney D. Drell, Stanford University.