Abstract
The paper “Processes Involving Charged Mesons” [1, 2] signed by Cesare Mansueto Giulio Lattes(1), Hugh Muirhead, Giuseppe Paolo Stanislao Occhialini, and Cecil Frank Powell(2) was published in the May 24th, 1947 issue of Nature. In the introduction to this paper we can read the following announcement:
“we have found evidence of mesons which, at the end of their range, produce secondary mesons.” The primary mesons, whose discovery was announced with these very words, were at first thought to be the long searched for pions, the particles responsible for the strong interaction predicted by Hideki Yukawa in 1935(3), the secondary mesons being the muons discovered by Carl Anderson and Seth Henry Neddermeyer in 1937(4) and identified with a particle different from Yukawa’s meson by Marcello Conversi, Ettore Pancini and Oreste Piccioni in Rome [18–26].
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Lattes C. M. G., Muirhead H., Occhialini G. P. S. and Powell C. F., “Processes Involving Charged Mesons”, Nature, 159 (1947) 694–697.
Lattes C. M. G., Occhialini G. P. S. and Powell C. F., “Observations on the Tracks of Slow Mesons in Photographic Emulsions”, Nature, 160 (1947) 453–456, 486–492.
Nussenzveig M., Leite Vieira C. and De Souza Barros F., “Cesar Lattes. Modéstia, ciência e sabedoria”, Ciência hoje, 19 (1995) 10–22.
Caruso E., Marques A. and Troper A. (Editors), Cesar Lattes, a descoberta do meson π e outras histórias (Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro) 1999.
Bellandi J. and Pemmaraju A. (Editors), Topics on Cosmic Rays. 60th anniversary of C. M. G. Lattes (Unicamp, Campinas) 1984.
Frank F. C. and Perkins D. H., “Powell, Cecil Frank”, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society, 17 (1971) 541–563.
Powell C. F., “Fragments of Autobiography”, in Selected Papers of Cecil Frank Powell, edited by Burhop E. H. S., Lock W. O. and Menon M. G. K. (North Holland, Amsterdam) 1972, p. 17.
Brown L. M., “Hideki Yukawa and the Meson Theory”, Physics Today, 39, No. 12 (1986) 55–62.
Brown L. M. and Rechenberg H., “Quantum Field Theories, Nuclear Forces, and the Cosmic Rays (1934–1938)”, American Journal of Physics, 59 (1991) 595–605.
Hayakawa S., “The Development of Meson Physics in Japan” in The Birth of Particle Physics, edited by Brown L. M. and Hoddeson L. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) 1983, pp. 82–107.
Mukherji V., “A History of the Meson Theory of Nuclear Forces from 1935 to 1952”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 13 (1974) 27–102.
Yukawa H., “On the Interaction of Elementary Particles. I” Proceedings of the Physical-Mathematical Society of Japan, 27 (1935) 48–57.
Rechenberg H. and Brown L. M., “Yukawa’s Heavy Quantum and the Mesotron (1935–1937)”, Centaurus, 33 (1990) 214–252.
Yukawa H., “Meson Theory in Its Developments. Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1949”, Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942–1962 (Elsevier, New York) 1964, pp. 128–134.
Yukawa H., “Cosmic Rays and the Beginning of the Meson Theory” in Early History of Cosmic Ray Studies. Personal Reminiscences with Old Photographs, edited by Sekido Y. and Elliot H. (D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht) 1985, pp. 133–135.
Neddermeyer S. H. and Anderson C. D., “Note on the Nature of Cosmic-Ray Particles”, The Physical Review, 51 (1937) 884–886.
Neddermeyer S. H. and Anderson C. D., “Cosmic-Ray Particles of Intermediate Mass”, The Physical Review, 54 (1938) 88–89.
Bernardini G., “The Intriguing History of the μ-Meson” in The Birth of Particle Physics, edited by Brown L. M. and Hoddeson L. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) 1983, pp. 155–172.
Conversi M., “L’intricata storia del muone”, Il Nuovo Saggiatore, 1 (1985) 33–40.
Conversi M., Pancini E. and Piccioni O., “On the Decay Process of Positive and Negative Mesons”, The Physical Review, 68 (1945) 232.
Conversi M., Pancini E. and Piccioni O., “On the Disintegration of Negative Mesons”, The Physical Review, 71 (1947) 209–210.
Conversi M. and Piccioni O., “Misura diretta della vita media dei mesoni frenati”, Il Nuovo Cimento, 9 (1944) 40.
Conversi M. and Piccioni O., “Sulla disintegrazione dei mesoni lenti”, Il Nuovo Cimento, 9 (1944) 71.
Conversi M. and Piccioni O., “On the Mean Life of Slow Mesons”, The Physical Review, 70 (1946) 859–873.
Conversi M. and Piccioni O., “On the Disintegration of Slow Mesons”, The Physical Review, 70 (1946) 874–881.
Galison P., “The Discovery of the Muon and the Failed Revolution against Quantum Electrodynamics”, Centaurus, 26 (1983) 262–316.
Lock W. O., “Origins and early days of the Bristol school of cosmic-ray physics”, European Journal of Physics, 11 (1990) 193–202.
Galison P., Image and Logic. A Material Culture of Microphysics (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago), 1997.
Ribeiro De Andrade A. M., “The socio-historical construction of π-meson” MAST, Notas téecnico-científicas, 001/97.
Foster B. and Fowler P. H. (Editors), 40 Years of Particle Physics, (Adam Hilger, Bristol) 1988.
Wolfendale A. W., “History of British Contributions to the Astrophysical Aspects of Cosmic Rays and Gamma Rays since the Second World War”, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 29 (1988) 27–37.
Rochester G. D., “The Development and Use of Nuclear Emulsions in England in the Years 1945–50”, Colloque International sur l’Histoire de la Physique des Particules / International Colloquium on the History of Particle Physics, Paris, France, 21–23 juillet 1982, Journal de Physique, Colloque 43 (1982) C8-89–90.
Perkins D. H., “The Birth of Pion Physics” in The Restructuring of Physical Sciences in Europe and the United States 1945–1960, edited by De Maria M., Grilli M. and Sebastiani F. (World Scientific, Singapore) 1989, pp. 585–604.
Ribeiro De Andrade A. M., “Os raios cósmicos entre a ciência e as relações internacionais”, in Ciência, política e relações internacionais, edited by Maio M. (Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro) 2004, p. 215–242.
Rochester G. D. and Butler C. C., “Evidence for the Existence of New Unstable Elementary Particles”, Nature, 160 (1947) 855–857.
Tyndall A. M., A History of the Department of Physics in Bristol 1876–1948 with Personal Reminiscences, in Histories of Physics in Bristol, edited by Chambers R. G. and Hart M., 2005. http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/history.html.
Davies J. H., Lock W. O. and Muirhead H., “The decay of μ-mesons”, The Philosophical Magazine, 40 (1949) 1250–1260.
Sakata S. and Inoue T., “The correlations between mesons and Yukawa particles”, Progress of Theoretical Physics, 1 (1946) 143–150.
The two-meson decay was pointed out also by Marshak R. E. and Bethe H. A., “On the Two-Meson Hypothesis”, The Physical Review, 72 (1947) 506–509.
Dilworth C. C., Occhialini G. P. S. and Payne R. M., “Processing Thick Emulsions for Nuclear Research”, Nature, 162 (1948) 102–103.
Powell C. F. and Occhialini G. P. S., Nuclear Physics in Photographs. Tracks of Charged Particles in Photographic Emulsions (Clarendon Press, Oxford) 1947.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Società Italiana di Fisica
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lock, W.O., Gariboldi, L. (2006). Occhialini’s contribution to the discovery of the pion. An interview by L. Gariboldi. In: Redondi, P., Sironi, G., Tucci, P., Vegni, G. (eds) The Scientific Legacy of Beppo Occhialini. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-37354-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-37354-4_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-37353-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-37354-4
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)