History 181B - Class 32

History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 32 (4/11/03)
Nuclear physics

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Outline

The physics of nuclei
The neutron, and Heisenberg's quantum mechanical nucleus
Fermi's quantum field theoretic nucleus

Experiment: Artificial nuclear transformations
Induced radioactivity and the transuranics
Nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry

Nuclear modeling: Successes and limitations
    The shell model: Nuclear stability
    The liquid-drop model: Nuclear constitution
    The compound-nucleus model: Nuclear reactions

Rethinking the transuranics: Discovering fission (1938)

Names and terms

Primary

Secondary

mass number A, atomic number Z
neutrino (nu)
Fermi interaction (beta decay)
Fermi-field theory of nuclear forces
Frédéric Joliot (1900-1958) and
Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1957), NP 1935 (chemistry)
Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), NP 1938
Otto Hahn (1879-1968), NP 1944 (chemistry)
Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
Fritz Strassmann (1902-1980)
Otto Robert Frisch (1904-1979)
fission
binding energy
fission fragment
chain reaction

James Chadwick (1901-1954), NP 1935

Assignment

Otto Robert Frisch, "The Interest Is Focussing on the Atomic Nucleus," in Niels Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by His Friends, ed. S. Rozental (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1967), 137-148; O. Hahn and F. Strassmann, "Concerning the Existence of Alkaline Earth Metals Resulting from Neutron Irradiation of Uranium" (1939), in The Discovery of Nuclear Fission, ed. Hans G. Graetzer and David L. Anderson (New York: Arno Press, 1981), 44-47; Lise Meitner and O.R. Frisch, "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction," Nature 143 (1939): 239-240.

    What was the compound nucleus (or liquid drop) model?
    Why was it hard to make sense of Hahn and Strassmann's results?
    What was it like to be an experimental nuclear physicist in the 1930s?