Elementary particle physics: The origins

Abstract

With the standard model summarizing everything that has been learned about elementary particles in the past 50 to 60 years, it is perhaps difficult to remember that physics remains a subject that has its foundations in experiment. Not only is it because particle physics can be conveniently encapsulated in a theoretical model that we fail to remember, but it is also true that most physics textbooks devoted to the subject and popular accounts are written by theorists and are colored with their particular point of view. From a plethora of texts and memoirs I can point to relatively few written by experimental physicists. Immediately coming to mind is Perkins’ Introduction to High Energy Physicsand the fascinating memoir of Otto Frisch, “What Little I Remember.” Bruno Rossi contributed both texts and a lively memoir. We can also point to Alvarez, Segre, and Lederman. But still this genre by experimentalists is relatively rare. One can speculate why this is the case—that theorists are naturally more contemplative, that experimentalists are people of action (they have to be—the vacuum system always has a leak, there is always an excess of noise and cross-talk in the electronics, there is always something to be fixed).