Abstract
The theme of this chapter continues that of the previous one in the concern to show how the links between the evidential context of nuclear astrophysics and the solar-neutrino experiment were established. This chapter takes us from the allocation of the funding in 1964, until the eve of the experiment in the Spring of 1967. Over this period, ties between Davis and Bahcall, in particular, became even closer as the experiment was made ready.
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References
The chain of reactions whereby fast neutrons can produce Ar37 is: Cl35+ n → S35+ p; Cl7 + p → Ar37 + n.
Brookhaven National Laboratory internal memorandum, B.W. Quinn to Procurement Review Board, October 16, 1964.
This idea was later dropped as it was felt that Sunshine might not agree to an independent consultant. Instead an official from the Bureau of Mines was appointed to supervise the work.
Letter, R. Davis to Philip Morrison, December 3, 1964. Morrison had been at Caltech and had published an article on neutrino astronomy in Scientific American — he was thus keeping a close eye on developments (see, P. Morrison, ‘Neutrino Astronomy’, Scientific American, 207, 90–98 (August 1962).
Letter, Donald T. Delicate to B. Munhofen, January 2, 1965.
It is worth noting in this respect that Homestake devoted four issues of the company magazine Sharp Bits to coverage of the neutrino experiment. See, Sharp Bits, 16, No. 8, (September 1965); 17, No. 5, (June 1966); 17, No. 11, (December 1966); and 20, No. 1, (Spring 1969). Sharp Bits can be obtained from the Homestake Mining Company, 650 California Street, San Fransisco, California.
United State Government Memorandum, J.H. Pomeroy to A.R. Van Dyken, June 23, 1966.
‘Unionised Gold Mine Faces Problems’, Washington Post, (June 23, 1966).
Brookhaven National Laboratory internal memorandum, R.W. Dodson to M. Goldhaber, October 7, 1966.
Letter, R. Davis to J. H. Pomeroy, February 28, 1967.
For more discussion of these experiments, see F. Reines, ‘The Search for the Solar Neutrinos’, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 301, 159–70 (1967).
For more details, see Pinch (1982b).
For accounts of some of the realities of research within the laboratory, see, for example, Latour and Woolgar (1979) and Knorr-Cetina (1981).
For instance, telescopes often have to be built in locations free from atmospheric disturbances — that is usually on top of mountains.
Indeed some of these processes can be seen in the ‘big science’ of earlier periods, such as Boyle’s air-pump experiments; see Shapin and Schaffer (1985).
It is particular striking in Latour and Woolgar’s (1979) account of scientific work at the Salk Institute (a bio-chemistry laboratory) that most research is carried out using off-the-shelf instruments. However, M. Lynch (personal communication) has informed me that even in this sort of laboratory it is not uncommon to find modifications to instruments, and that scientists spend much time on designing and building their own equipment.
Davis, for example, had a great interest in and knowledge of the theoretical context in which his results were to be interpreted.
On the role of tacit knowledge in experimentation in modern science, see Collins (1974), Collins and Harrison (1975), and Collins (1985).
P.D. Parker, ‘Termination of the Proton-Proton Chain via the Be7(p, γ)B8 Reaction’, The Astrophysical Journal, 145, 960–1 (1966)
P.D. Parker, ‘Be7(p,γ)B8 Reaction’, Physical Review, 150, 851–6 (1966).
H.C. Winkler and M.R. Dwarakanath, ‘He3 + He3 → He4 + 2p Total Cross-Section at Low Energies’, Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 12, 16 (1967).
D. Ezer and A. Cameron, ‘A study of Solar Evolution’, Canadian Journal of Physics, 43, 1497–517 (1965).
Letter, R. Davis to J. Bahcall, January 21, 1964.
‘Neutrino Trap’, ‘Science and the Citizen’, Scientific American, 212, 53 (February 1965).
‘Erratum’, Scientific American, 212, 8 (April 1965).
Brookhaven National Laboratory, internal memorandum, R. Davis to R.W. Dodson, April 15, 1966.
Letter, R.W. Dodson to J. Bahcall, April 25, 1966.
Letter, R. Christian Anderson to J. Bahcall, May 25, 1966 (Anderson was Assistant Director of BNL).
Op. cit., note [26].
One notable exception is Pickering (1984).
Letter, J. Bahcall to R. Davis, January 4, 1967.
The original Bahcall and Shaviv paper was not received by The Astrophysical Journal until August 10, 1967. The paper was not finally published until July 1968 after a minor revision had been made in January 1968 which led to the slightly smaller prediction of ?B8 = 1.3 (1 ± 0.6) × 107 cm-2 sec-1. (It is not clear what the cause of this revision was). Bahcall was anxious for an earlier publication date. For instance, he wrote to Chandrasekhar (the Editor of The Astro-physical Journal) on November 8, 1967 and urged him to publish the paper earlier. He wrote: As you may have heard on the grapevine, the experiment which motivated these calculations is now essentially completed and comparisons with our theoretical calculations have already been used in summarising the implications of the experimental results [mentions Goldhaber’s talk in Japan — see next chapter]...Under the circumstances I would very much appreciate it if you could check to see if an earlier publication date for our paper is possible. It seems that an earlier publication date was not possible and thus Bahcall was faced with the prospect that his prediction made in August 1967 would not appear in the scientific literature until a year after the experimental result was known. By the time the Bahcall and Shaviv paper appeared, the theoretical prediction had been drastically revised (see next chapter).
One bet, made on February 13, 1967, was with Fowler. Bahcall offered to pay Fowler one US dollar if the signal Davis detected did not lie between 3 SNU and 300 SNU. He also had a similar bet with another colleague, Jon Mathew. The jokiness surrounding such bets was nicely summed up for me by Davis who pointed out that, while the theoreticians were prepared to risk one dollar, he was risking six hundred thousand dollars!
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Pinch, T. (1986). Consolidating the Link. In: Confronting Nature. Sociology of the Sciences Monographs, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7729-8_5
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