Abstract
In this chapter some of the technical details and historical background necessary for understanding developments outlined later in this work will be described. The important notion of an ‘evidential context’ in which the results of experiments are interpreted will be introduced. This notion will be used throughout the analysis. A brief historical sketch of the early attempts at neutrino detection mounted by Davis and other experimenters will be presented. It is shown how the evidential context for Davis’s experiment arose from developments in the field of nuclear astrophysics and in particular work at the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. It was out of the convergence in interests of the Caltech scientists and the Brookhaven group under Davis that solar-neutrino detection was born.
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References
This convention for representing the mass number (in this case ‘37’) is used throughout this work.
Cosmic-ray muons produce proton secondaries which trigger the detector via the reaction Cl37+ p → Ar37 + n.
Also, we should remember that the areas of science which are relevant to this problem are as wide as the scientists themselves consider them to be. For example, one scientist has suggested that salar-neutrino detection can only be understood when certain effects in parapsychology are included: see, M. Ruderfer, ‘Are Solar Neutrinos detected by Living Things?’, Physics Letters, 54A, 363–64 (1975). Although this may seem extreme, and is probably not accepted by anyone else, we cannot exclude the relevance of this area of science a priori — especially given our commitment to the symmetry principle outlined in Chapter One.
The need to extend the sociology of science to include technology is argued by Pinch and Bijker (1984).
Solar-neutrino scientists are starting to produce their own histories; see Bahcall and Davis (1982).
Thus the impression will frequently be given in this chapter that developments proceeded according to their own immutable scientific logic and paralleled the unravelling of the secrets of Nature.
A useful survey of the literature on the history of the neutrino can be found in L.M. Lederman, ‘Resource Letter Neu-1 History of the Neutrino’, American Journal of Physics, 38, 129–36 (1970).
This is a quote from the Bethe ‘bible’: H.A. Bethe and R.F. Bacher, ‘Nuclear Physics, Part 1, “Stationary States of Nuclei”’, Reviews of Modern Physics, 8, 82–229 (1936), at p.198.
According to Alvarez, Pontecorvo’s proposal was written up by someone attending the lecture. This report was, of course, like all work associated with nuclear reactors at the time, classified. Ray Davis (interview material) felt Ponte-corvo was keen to do the experiment, but lacked the necessary chemical expertise.
E.L. Fireman, ‘A Measurement of the Half-Life of Double Beta-Decay from Sn124’, Physical Review, 75, 323–4 (1949).
These measurements were made by E.P. George and J. Evans. See, for instance, J. Evans and E.P. George, ‘Observation of Nuclear Disintegrations Below Ground’, Nature, 164, 20–22 (1949).
Reines (1979), F. Reines and C.L. Cowan, Jr., ‘A Proposed Experiment to Detect the Free Neutrino’, Physical Review, 90, 492 (1953),
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See, Reines (1979).
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C.L. Cowan Jr., F. Reines, F.B. Harrison, H.W. Kruse, and A.D. McGuire, ‘Detection of the Free Neutrino: a Confirmation’, Science, 124, 103–4 (1956).
See, for instance, R. Davis, Jr., ‘Nuclear Recoil Following Neutrino Emission from Be7’, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Quarterly Progress Report, 83–7 (April 11 — June 30, 1950).
Davis’s background was a PhD in electro-chemistry from Yale in 1940. During 1941–5 he was in the army. He took up a post in the Chemistry Department of BNL in Spring 1948.
R. Davis Jr., ‘Attempt to Detect the Antineutrinos from a Nuclear Reactor by the Cl37(ῡ, e-)Ar37 Reaction’, Physical Review, 97, 766–9 (1955).
Quoted in Bahcall and Davis (1982:245).
M.I. Kalkstein and W.F. Libby, ‘An Investigation of the Double Beta-Decay of 50Sn124*’, Physical Review, 86, 368–9 (1952).
R. Davis Jr., ‘An attempt to Detect the Neutrinos from a Nuclear Reactor by the Cl37(ῡ, e-)Ar37 Reaction’, Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 1, 219 (1956).
T.D. Lee and C. N Yang, ‘Parity Nonconservation and a Two-component Theory of the Neutrino’, Physical Review, 105, 1671–5 (1957).
See, for example, M.A. Preston, ‘A Proposed Beta-Decay Interaction’, Canadian Journal of Physics, 35, 1017–20 (1957),
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E. Ambler, R.W. Hayword, D.S. Hoppes, and R.P. Hudson, ‘Further Experiments on Beta-Decay of Polarized Nuclei’, Physical Review, 106, 1361–3 (1957);
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See, R. Davis Jr., ‘An attempt to Observe the Capture of Reactor Neutrinos in Chlorine-37’, in R.C. Extermann, (ed.), Radioisotopes in Scientific Research, Vol. 1, New York: Pergamon (1958).
R. Davis Jr., and D.S. Harmer, ‘Attempt to Observe the Cl37 (ῡ, e-) Ar37 Reaction Induced by Reactor Anti-neutrinos’, Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 4, 217 (1959).
H.D. Holmgren and R.L. Johnston, ‘He3(α-,γ)Be7 Reaction’, Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 3, 26, (1958).
A brief history of the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory can be found in Engineering and Science, ‘Special Issue in Memory of Charles Lauritsen’, 32 (June 1969).
For details, see W.A. Fowler, ‘Nuclear Astrophysics -Today and Yesterday’, Engineering and Science, 32, 8–13 (1969).
E.M. Burbidge, G.R. Burbidge, W.A. Fowler and F. Hoyle, ‘Synthesis of the Elements in Stars’, Reviews of Modern Physics, 29, 547–650 (1957).
For a much more informative historical account of developments in this period, see Karl Hufbauer, ‘The Stellar-Energy Problem, 1919–1939’, paper presented to the H.S.S. Meeting, Madison, Wisconsin, (October 1978).
The standard modern accounts of stellar-evolution theory are to be found in M. Schwarzschild, Structure and Evolution of the Stars, Princeton, Princeton University Press (1958),
and D.D. Clayton, Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis, New York, McGraw Hill (1968).
Letter, W. Fowler to R. Davis, January 7, 1958, and letter, A. Cameron to R. Davis, January 22, 1958.
See, Fowler (1958), and Cameron (1958).
Letter, R. Davis to W. Fowler, January 15, 1958.
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Pinch, T. (1986). Experiment and Evidential Context: Their Early History and Background. In: Confronting Nature. Sociology of the Sciences Monographs, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7729-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7729-8_3
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