History of Original Ideas and Basic Discoveries in Particle Physics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. Session I

   1. Indirect Approaches to Fundamental Theory

      • Murray Gell-Mann

      Pages 1-7

   2. Quantum Electrodynamics — From a Personal Perspective —

      • Toichiro Kinoshita

      Pages 9-26

   3. Electroweak Reminiscences

      • Steven Weinberg

      Pages 27-36

   4. Gauge Theory and Renormalization

      • Gerard’t Hooft

      Pages 37-53

   5. Magnetic Monopoles, Fiber Bundles, and Gauge Fields

      • Chen Ning Yang

      Pages 55-65

   6. Vacua, Vacuum: the Physics of Nothing

      • L. B. Okun

      Pages 67-74

3. Session II

   1. Asymptotic Freedom, Confinement and QCD

      • David J. Gross

      Pages 75-99

   2. Gluon Jets

      • James G. Branson

      Pages 101-121

   3. QCD in “Her” Maiden Years

      • A. De Rújula

      Pages 123-141

   4. The Discovery of the Muon

      • Oreste Piccioni

      Pages 143-162

   5. Kaon Decays to Pions

      • R. H. Dalitz

      Pages 163-183

   6. Symmetries and Meson Decays

      • Robert K. Adair

      Pages 185-197

4. Session III

   1. Test of QED and Photoproduction of Vector Mesons

      • Ulrich Becker

      Pages 199-225

   2. Foundations of Sequential Heavy Lepton Searches

      • A. Zichichi

      Pages 227-275

   3. The Discovery of The Tau Lepton

      • Martin L. Perl

      Pages 277-302

   4. The Discovery of the J Particle

      • Samuel C. C. Ting

      Pages 303-327

   5. From the ψ to Charmed Mesons

      • Gerson Goldhaber

      Pages 329-357

   6. The Discovery of the Upsilon Family

      • Daniel M. Kaplan

      Pages 359-380

5. Session IV

   1. Parity Violation

      • Chien-Shiung Wu

      Pages 381-400

The International Conference on the History of Original Ideas and Basic Discoveries, held at the "Ettore Majorana" Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily, July 27-August 4, 1994, brought together sixty of the leading scientists including many Nobel Laureates in high energy physics, principal contributors in other fields of physics such as high Tc superconductivity, particle accelerators and detector instrumentation, and thirty-six talented younger physicists selected from candidates throughout the world. The scientific program, including 49 lectures and a discussion session on the "Status and Future Directions in High Energy Physics" was inspired by the conference theme: The key experimental discoveries and theoretical breakthroughs of the last 50 years, in particle physics and related fields, have led us to a powerful description of matter in terms of three quark and three lepton families and four fundamental interactions. The most recent generation of experiments at e+e- and proton-proton colliders, and corresponding advances in theoretical calculations, have given us remarkably precise determinations of the basic parameters of the electroweak and strong interactions. These developments, while showing the striking internal consistency of the Standard Model, have also sharpened our view of the many unanswered questions which remain for the next generation: the origin and pattern of particle masses and families, the unification of the interactions including gravity, and the relation between the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe.

• Baryon
• Confinement
• Dark matter
• Lepton
• Meson
• Neutrino
• Particle Physics
• Quark
• hadron

• California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA

  Harvey B. Newman

• Collège de France, Paris, France

  Thomas Ypsilantis

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