Abstract
After a short introduction with some personal recollection, the author summarizes, in Sect 2, the main points of Fermi's theory of beta decay and of the neutrino hypothesis first proposed by Pauli. The successive Sections refer to : a few extensions and modifications of this theory (Sect 3), various experimental investigations carried out in the 30s for testing Pauli's hypothesis and Fermi's approach (Sect 4), further attempts, refinements and proposals (Sect 5) and a few fundamental step forward such as the discovery of the universality of weak interactions, of parity violation by weak interactions, the 2-component theory of the neutrino and the (V-A) theory of weak interactions (Sect 6). Finally Section 7 refers to a few contributions given in the period 1930-1960 to the problem of double beta decay.
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