The beginning "Dear Radioactives" is a classic, we even learnt it at school
As this was sent to experimental nuclear physicists in the 30's, it may well have been a reasonably accurate description.
The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
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Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#12I've been reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," which is a great book and covers the early discovery of Quantum Mechanics, including this letter. Recommended.
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#13Basically Pauli can't get his dear theory to work so has to invent magic dark matter to get the theory to match the experiments. This 'quantum' atom looks more and more like ptolemaic epicycles. Clearly we need to throw the theory away and start from scratch. [this being the internet: /s ]
The neutrino is very real, and observable by experiment. It was first unambiguously observed in 1956 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowan–Reines_neutrino_experi...).
Reines was awarded a Nobel prize in 1995 for the discovery.
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#14Basically Pauli can't get his dear theory to work so has to invent magic dark matter to get the theory to match the experiments. This 'quantum' atom looks more and more like ptolemaic epicycles. Clearly we need to throw the theory away and start from scratch. [this being the internet: /s ]
It's Pauli who's being the principled scientist here, though. He comes up with something that explains the experimental result and fits established theory. The epicyclist in this case was Bohr - his idea was that maybe conservation of energy is just a suggestion.
Maybe the missing mass is just the universe skimming a small percentage of the "transaction" as payment, right?
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#15I've been reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," which is a great book and covers the early discovery of Quantum Mechanics, including this letter. Recommended.
The follow-up to that is basically Command and Control which covers what happens after those things were made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)
It starts out where those weapons and prototypes from World War II were sitting on a shelf in a hut in the middle of the desert with no real security. That program had been all but shut down, the team disbanded.
Equally interesting is Stalin and the Bomb which covers the Soviet efforts to replicate what the Americans had created: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Stalin_and_the_Bomb.html...
There's accounts of scientists painstakingly re-discovering fundamental things only to realize their superiors already knew the correct approach to take, their intelligence had stolen the files, but were concerned that the information was faked to lead them astray. They must have felt like high-school students getting their homework checked by the teacher.
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#16Basically Pauli can't get his dear theory to work so has to invent magic dark matter to get the theory to match the experiments. This 'quantum' atom looks more and more like ptolemaic epicycles. Clearly we need to throw the theory away and start from scratch. [this being the internet: /s ]
The neutrino is very real, and observable by experiment. It was first unambiguously observed in 1956 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowan–Reines_neutrino_experi... ). Reines was awarded a Nobel prize in 1995 for the discovery.
Of course, mine was just a quip at those that dismiss dark matter as just an 'hack' to patch a broken theory.
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
The neutrino is very real, and observable by experiment. It was first unambiguously observed in 1956 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowan–Reines_neutrino_experi... ). Reines was awarded a Nobel prize in 1995 for the discovery.
Of course, mine was just a quip at those that dismiss dark matter as just an 'hack' to patch a broken theory.
Ah, understood :)
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#18I've been reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," which is a great book and covers the early discovery of Quantum Mechanics, including this letter. Recommended.
The follow-up to that is basically Command and Control which covers what happens after those things were made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) It starts out where those weapons and prototypes from World War II were sitting on a shelf in a hut in the middle of the desert with no real security. That program had been all but shut down, the team disbanded. Equally interesting is Stalin and the Bo…
Well don't get to ahead of yourself. The follow up should be "Building the H Bomb: A Personal History" by Kenneth W. Ford.
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The follow-up to that is basically Command and Control which covers what happens after those things were made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book) It starts out where those weapons and prototypes from World War II were sitting on a shelf in a hut in the middle of the desert with no real security. That program had been all but shut down, the team disbanded. Equally interesting is Stalin and the Bo…
Well don't get to ahead of yourself. The follow up should be "Building the H Bomb: A Personal History" by Kenneth W. Ford.
True. There is that thing.
Re: The Proposal of the Neutrino (1930)
#20Basically Pauli can't get his dear theory to work so has to invent magic dark matter to get the theory to match the experiments. This 'quantum' atom looks more and more like ptolemaic epicycles. Clearly we need to throw the theory away and start from scratch. [this being the internet: /s ]
I came here to snark this exact snark.
You and gpderetta are quantum-entangled?