The Birth of Particle Physics [Paperback]

A distinctive collection of essays, discussions, and personal descriptions of the evolution of particle physics.Editors Laurie Brown and Lillian Hoddeson have brought together a distinctive collection of essays, discussions, and personal descriptions of the evolution of particle physics based on the presentations and discussions at the May 1980 International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics, held at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.Editors Laurie Brown and Lillian Hoddeson have brought together a distinctive collection of essays, discussions, and personal descriptions of the evolution of particle physics based on the presentations and discussions at the May 1980 International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics, held at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.Editors Laurie Brown and Lillian Hoddeson have brought together a distinctive collection of essays, discussions, and personal descriptions of the evolution of particle physics based on the presentations and discussions at the May 1980 International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics, held at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. This collection focuses primarily on the development of cosmic-ray physics and quantum field theory in the 1930s and 1940s, before the advent of the great postwar accelerators, and draws on research conducted in the United States, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, France, and the USSR.Part I. Introduction: 1. The birth of elementary particle physics: 19301950 Laurie M. Brown and Lillian Hoddeson; Part II. Theoretical Underpinnings: 2. The origin of quantum field theory Paul A. M. Dirac; 3. Growing up with field theory: the development of quantum electrodynamics Victor F. Weisskopf; 4. The development of meson physics in Japan Satio Hayakawa; Part III. Discoveries of Particles: 5. The early stage of cosmic-ray particle research Dmitry Skobeltzyn; 6. Some reminiscences of the early days ls