Abstract
No one who has followed the development of the theory of beta decay could fail to be impressed with the way that beta decay, from its first, very confused appearance, gradually developed into a consistent picture and finally assumed a role of great importance in particle interactions. As is well known, beta decay is full of surprises and subtleties. Its apparent perversities have threatened us not once but twice with the abandonment of some of our cherished conservation laws. However, it seems quite clear now that the first riddle of the continuous beta spectra was just a coded clue which nature had chosen as a medium to reveal the secret of the existence of an elusive elementary particle (neutrino). Otherwise, how would this elusive, undetectable particle ever have been discovered directly? In the second crisis, when the laws of parity and charge conjugation were found separately violated in beta decay, the world of physics was shocked and puzzled. Then it again turned out that by removing these restrictions, gates were opened wide for a much better understanding of beta decay. A great advance in the theory of the neutrino (two components) immediately followed, and the possibility of a broader and deeper symmetry connecting space and electricity (CP combined inversion) thus emerged. We were all pleasantly surprised.
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Wu, C.S. (1959). History of Beta Decay. In: Frisch, O.R., Paneth, F.A., Laves, F., Rosbaud, P. (eds) Beiträge zur Physik und Chemie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Vieweg+Teubner Verlag, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-20204-2_5
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