Year: 2022

BLACK BOX. “The neat pattern of the division of interactions into four categories with vastly different strengths...is itself a great mystery. Physicists have learned to live with this pattern, without really understanding it. “ https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

DOGMA OF UNIVERSALITY. “Up to 1957 It was believed that C, P, and T invariance separately holds for all physical phenomena.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

WEAK EM VIOLATION. “That year brought a great shock in the first concrete evidence, through the experiment of Wu, Ambler, Hayward, Hoppes, and Hudson, that P invariance holds only for strong and electromagnetic interactions and is violated in the weak interactions.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

THE NOBEL EXPERIMENT. “The same experiment also demonstrated through some theoretical arguments the violation of C invariance in P decay.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

CONUNDRUM.”Why is right-left symmetry almost observed, but not quite? Nobody knows the answer to this question.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

IF IN DOUBT, REDEFINE. “But for a few years after 1957 it was thought that right-left symmetry could still be salvaged through a changed definition of the mirror image process.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

PARTIAL SALVAGE. “In this way some symmetry is lost, but right-left symmetry is still obeyed in a changed sense. (The changed sense of reflection has been illustrated' in a marvelous drawing by the Dutch artist M.C. Escher reproduced in Figure 12).” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

ESCHER THE SYMMETRIST. “Figure 12. Drawing by M.C. Escher which can illustrate CP invariance. The drawing is different from its mirror image since in the drawing white knights show left arms while in the mirror image white knights show right arms. The "C/"' image of the drawing is obtained from the usual mirror image by switching the colors white and black.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

WEAK EM NAILED. “However, such a hypothesis was shattered in the summer of 1964 when an experiment done by Christenson, Cronin, Fitch, and Turlay produced conclusive evidence that CP invariance is also not valid for the weak interactions.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn

TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS. “It is, however, possible to conceive of a direct test of the violation of CP invariance as illustrated in Figure 13...it is safe to assume that some day this experiment will be done.” https://lnkd.in/dqXS2nnQ View in LinkedIn