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History 181B:  Modern Physics
Class 29 (3/23/01)
Particles and nuclei
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Outline What are QFTs good for?
     Quantum electrodynamics (last time)
     QED as a model for other QFTs

Discovering new particles:  the birth of particle physics
     Experimental techniques:  making things "visible"
     Two new particles of the 1930s

The cloud on the horizon:  QED's infinities

The physics of nuclei

     The initial model:  protons plus electrons
     And the problems it raised for quantum mechanics
          Electron confinement
          The spectrum of b decay

     Discovery:  the neutron (1932)
     Heisenberg's quantum mechanical nucleus

Names and terms 
Primary Secondary
cloud chamber
electronic detectors
cosmic rays
Carl Anderson (1905-1991), NP 1936
Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981), NP 1949
meson (pion) vs. muon
vacuum polarization
effective charge
mass number A
atomic number Z
Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli
neutrino (n)
James Chadwick (1891-1974), NP 1935
Copyright © Cathryn Carson 2001