Hadronic Octaves: Symphony in Treble Clef

Abstract

Pythagoreanism, as derived from the physics of music, an artificial quantized system, involved simple ratios between integers and was conjectured by the Pythagoreans to extend to the whole of physics (the Music of the Spheres). It hit the jackpot in 1895 with Balmer’s formula and has dominated XXth Century physics, with its Quantum Foundations. I review the history of Hadron Spectroscopy and my personal role in 1958–1964, i.e. (1) my 1960 discovery of SU(3) symmetry with an octet assignment for the j = 12 baryons (independently reached somewhat later by M. Gell‐Mann), and (2) in 1961 (with H. Goldberg) my mathematical construction of a structural model which was then developed into the physical quark model by Gell‐Mann and Zweig.