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Physics Textbooks Don’t Always Tell the Truth

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Abstract

Anyone who studies the history of physics quickly realizes that the history presented in physics textbooks is often inaccurate. I will discuss three episodes from the history of modern physics: (1) Robert Millikan’s experiments on the photoelectric effect, (2) the Michelson-Morley experiment, and (3) the Ellis-Wooster experiment on the energy spectrum in β decay. Everyone knows that Millikan’s work established the photon theory of light and that the Michelson-Morley experiment was crucial in the genesis of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The problem is that what everyone knows is wrong. Neither experiment played the role assigned to it by physics textbooks. The Ellis-Wooster experiment, on the other hand, is rarely discussed in physics texts, but it should be. It led to Wolfgang Pauli’s suggestion of the neutrino. I will present a more accurate history of these three experiments than those given in physics texts.

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Notes

  1. In retrospect, Millikan’s experimental result did provide support for Einstein’s photon theory. Millikan himself, did not think it did, but rather only that it confirmed Einstein’s equation. Others agreed. The controversy over the photon nature of light was not resolved until much later. See discussion below.

  2. Millikan never defined the unit μμ. He seems to have meant 10−7 cm.

  3. Millikan did not explain why he regarded these data as the most reliable. Millikan often states that some data are more reliable without providing an explanation.

  4. This is similar to the model Millikan had presented in his paper.

  5. N was the constant Bohr had derived in his formula for the energy levels of hydrogen.

  6. I follow the derivation given in Michelson and Morley, “On the Relative Motion” (ref. 2). I use c for the speed of light, rather than Michelson’s V. The derivation in Michelson, “Relative Motion” (ref. 84) is, as pointed out by Lorentz, incorrect.

  7. As noted above, there is good evidence that Einstein did know of the experiment earlier. Einstein was, however, writing fifty years after his paper was published.

  8. Brush discussed both the special and general theories of relativity. The last reason applies only to general relativity.

  9. Recall that polonium emits an α particle, which has a unique energy.

References

  1. Robert Millikan, “A Direct Photoelectric Determination of Planck’s ‘h,’” Physical Review 7 (1916), 355–88.

  2. Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, “On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” American Journal of Science 34 (1887), 333–45.

  3. Charles Ellis and William Wooster, “The Average Energy of Disintegration of Radium E,” Proceedings of the Royal Society (London) A117 (1927), 109–23.

  4. Allan Franklin, “Millikan’s Measurement of Planck’s Constant,” European Physics Journal H 38 (2013), 573–94; What Makes a Good Experiment? (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016).

  5. Arthur Ruark and Harold Urey, Atoms, Molecules, and Quanta (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1930), 64. Emphasis added.

  6. Francis Sears and Mark Zemansky, University Physics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1955).

  7. Ibid., 711.

  8. Harvey White, Introduction to Atomic and Nuclear Physics (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1964).

  9. Ibid., 120.

  10. Gerald Holton and Stephen Brush, Physics, the Human Adventure (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 446.

  11. Douglas Giancoli, Physics (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2005).

  12. Ibid., 760.

  13. Millikan, “Determination of Planck’s ‘h’” (ref. 1).

  14. Ibid., 355. Emphasis added.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid., 356.

  17. Robert Pohl and P. Pringsheim, “On the Long-Wave Limits of the Normal Photoelectric Effect,” Philosophical Magazine 26 (1913), 1017–24.

  18. Owen Richardson and Karl Compton, “The Photoelectric Effect,” Physical Review 34 (1912), 393–96.

  19. A. Hughes, “On the Long-Wave Limits of the Normal Photoelectric Effect,” Philosophical Magazine 27 (1914), 473–75.

  20. W. Kadesch, “The Energy of Photo-Electrons from Sodium and Potassium as a Function of the Frequency of the Incident Light,” Physical Review 3 (1914), 367–74.

  21. Robert Millikan, “A Direct Determination of ‘h,’” Physical Review 4 (1914), 73–75.

  22. Ibid., 74.

  23. Joseph John Thomson, “Ionisation,” Proceedings of the Physical Society of London 27 (1914), 94–117, cited in Millikan, “Determination of Planck’s ‘h’” (ref. 1), 357–58.

  24. Millikan, “Determination of Planck’s ‘h’” (ref. 1), 360.

  25. A. Hughes, “On the Emission Velocities of Photo-Electrons,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) A 212 (1912), 205–26. Emphasis added.

  26. Millikan, “Determination of Planck’s ‘h’” (ref. 1), 361. Surface effects had an effect on the measured stopping potential.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Gerald Holton and Duane Roller, Foundations of Modern Physical Science (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1958).

  29. Millikan, “Determination of Planck’s ‘h’” (ref. 1), 362.

  30. Ibid., 364.

  31. Ibid., 364–65.

  32. Ibid., 368.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid., 369.

  35. Ibid., 370.

  36. Ibid., 367.

  37. Ibid., 368.

  38. Ibid., 372.

  39. Ibid., 372–74.

  40. Ibid., 374.

  41. Ibid., 376.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid., 376–78.

  45. Ibid.

  46. “The Nobel Prize in Physics 1923,” Nobelprize.org, accessed December 16, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1923/.

  47. “The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921,” Nobelprize.org, accessed December 16, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/. Emphasis added.

  48. Niels Bohr, Hendrik. Kramers, and John Slater, “The Quantum Theory of Radiation,” Philosophical Magazine 47 (1924), 785–802.

  49. Arthur Compton and A. W. Simon, “Directed Quanta of Scattered X-rays,” Physical Review 26 (1925), 289–99. Quotation on 289–90. Emphasis added.

  50. Ibid., 299.

  51. “The Nobel Prize in Physics 1927,” Nobelprize.org, accessed December 16, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1927/.

  52. Albert Einstein, “Professor Einstein at the California Institute of Technology,” Science 73 (1931), 375–79.

  53. Robert Millikan, The Autobiography of Robert A. Millikan (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950).

  54. Robert Millikan, The Electron (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1917).

  55. Ibid., 227.

  56. Ibid., 230. Emphasis added.

  57. Millikan, The Electron (ref. 54), 244.

  58. Ibid., 244.

  59. Ibid., 246.

  60. Ibid.

  61. Ibid., 246–47.

  62. Ibid., 248.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Ibid., 256.

  65. Ibid., 257.

  66. Ibid. For details see Roger Stuewer, The Compton Effect: Turning Point in Physics (New York: Science History Publications, 1975), esp. chs. 6 and 7.

  67. Stuewer, The Compton Effect (ref. 66).

  68. Millikan, The Electron (ref. 54), 259.

  69. Ibid., 260.

  70. Robert Millikan, Electrons (+ and −), Protons, Photons, Neutrons, and Cosmic Rays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935).

  71. Ibid., vii.

  72. Ibid., 245.

  73. Ibid., 259.

  74. Ibid.

  75. Millikan, Autobiography (ref. 53).

  76. Ibid., 101–2. Emphasis added.

  77. Millikan, The Electron (ref. 54), 210–11.

  78. Michelson and Morley, “On the Relative Motion” (ref. 2).

  79. Quoted in Loyd S. Swenson Jr., The Ethereal Aether: A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-Drift Experiments 1880–1930 (Austin: University of Texas Press 1972), 42–43. Lewis’s poem was to celebrate the accomplishments of the Ryerson Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where Michelson spent the early part of his career.

  80. Swenson, The Ethereal Aether (ref. 79).

  81. For a more detailed history of this episode see Franklin, Good Experiment (ref. 4), ch. 16.

  82. Robert Millikan, “Albert Einstein on his Seventieth Birthday,” Reviews of Modern Physics 21 (1949), 343–45. As we saw earlier, Millikan is not the most reliable of historians.

  83. The titles of Michelson’s 1881 paper and the 1887 paper of Michelson and Morley were “The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether” and “On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” respectively.

  84. Albert Michelson, “The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether,” American Journal of Science 22 (1881), 120–29, on 122.

  85. Michel Janssen has pointed out that “the derivation of the prediction for the experiment does make it clear that the standard treatment of the experiment contains some dubious assumptions. Looking at the stretched out interferometer in the figure, one clearly sees that the stretched out mirrors, even though they are at rest in the ether, do not reflect light according to the standard law of reflection from geometrical optics if the light waves are to travel along the arms of the interferometer as was assumed in the derivations of both equations.” Personal communication, December 10, 2013.

  86. Michelson, “Relative Motion,” (ref. 84), 121.

  87. Ibid., 121. Michelson actually expected to observe a shift of 0.08 fringes (v/c ≈ 10−4). As pointed out by Lorentz and by Potier, Michelson had made an error in his calculation. He had neglected the motion of the mirror d. This reduces the predicted effect by a factor of two. Michelson was also not consistent in stating the size of his interferometer. In one place he states that D = 1.2 m or 2 × 106 wavelengths of yellow light. Elsewhere he used D ≈ 1 m or 1.7 × 106 wavelengths.

  88. Ibid., 124.

  89. Ibid., 125.

  90. Ibid., 127.

  91. Ibid.

  92. Ibid., 128.

  93. Ibid.; Michelson to Rayleigh, March 6, 1887, full text in Robert Shankland, “Michelson-Morley Experiment,” American Journal of Physics 32 (1964), 16–35.

  94. For details see Swenson, Etherial Aether (ref. 77), 73–74.

  95. Shankland, “Michelson-Morley” (ref. 93), 29.

  96. Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, “Influence of Motion of the Medium on the Velocity of Light,” American Journal of Science 31 (1886), 377–86, on 386.

  97. Michelson and Morley, “On the Relative Motion,” (ref. 2), 333.

  98. Ibid., 334.

  99. Ibid., 334–35. Emphasis added.

  100. Ibid., 336–37.

  101. Ibid., 339.

  102. Ibid.

  103. Ibid., 340–41.

  104. Jed Buchwald, From Maxwell to Microphysics (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988).

  105. Quoted in Ibid., 55.

  106. Oliver Lodge, “A Discussion concerning the Motion of the Ether near the Earth, and concerning the Connexion between Ether and Gross Matter; with some new Experiments,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 184 (1893), 727–804, on 753.

  107. W. Hicks, “On the Michelson-Morley Experiment relating to the Drift of the Æther,” Philosophical Magazine 3 (1902), 9–42.

  108. Ibid., 38.

  109. Dayton Miller, “The Ether-Drift Experiment and the Determination of the Absolute Motion of the Earth,” Reviews of Modern Physics 5 (1933), 203–42.

  110. R. S. Shankland and S. W. McCuskey, F. C. Leone, and G. Kuerti, “New Analysis of the Interferometer Observations of Dayton C. Miller,” Reviews of Modern Physics 27 (1955), 167–78. This was later explained as a temperature effect.

  111. John Stachel, “Einstein and Michelson: The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justification,” in Einstein from ‘B’ to ‘Z’ (Boston: Birkhauser 2002), 177–90.

  112. Gerald Holton, “Einstein, Michelson, and the ‘Crucial’ Experiment,” in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1988), 279–370, 477–80. Holton’s essay is pioneering. Much of the material in this discussion appeared in his essay.

  113. One might suggest that the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment called for a new theory. They could have led to the special theory of relativity, even though they in fact did not.

  114. Ibid., 345.

  115. Ibid.

  116. Albert Einstein, “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper,” Annalen der Physik 17 (1905), 891–921; Arthur Miller, Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1981). I use Miller’s translation.

  117. Ibid., 392.

  118. Ibid. Emphasis added.

  119. John Stachel, “What Song the Syrens Sang: How Did Einstein Discover Special Relativity?,” in Einstein (ref. 111), 157–69; “Einstein and Ether Drift Experiments,” in Einstein (ref. 111), 171–76; “Einstein and Michelson: The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justification,” in Einstein (ref. 111), 177–90.

  120. Stachel, ”Einstein and Ether Drift” (ref. 119), 175.

  121. Albert Einstein, “Über das Relativitätsprinzip und die aus demselben gezogenen Folgerungen,” Jahrbuch der Radioacktivitat und Elektronik 4 (1907), 411–62.

  122. Quoted in Holton, “‘Crucial’ Experiment” (ref. 112), 352.

  123. Ibid.

  124. Albert Einstein, “Relativity Theory,” in Die Physik, ed. E. Warburg (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1915), 703–13.

  125. Ibid., 706.

  126. Ibid., 707.

  127. Richard Staley, Einstein’s Generation: The Origins of the Relativity Revolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008). Holton does not regard these papers as historical evidence because of their primarily explanatory role. Richard Staley disagrees: “The centrality Einstein accorded the experiment, and the fact that he placed great significance on its value in enhancing the perception of relativity, is confirmed very clearly in a revealing letter he wrote to Arnold Sommerfeld in 1908. There Einstein suggested that ‘if the Michelson-Morley experiment had not brought us into the greatest predicament, no one would have perceived the theory of relativity as a (half) salvation” (122). Staley does recognize that “There are good reasons, of a pedagogical and justificatory nature, for Einstein to have constructed a route through works central to those concerned with electrodynamics rather than basing his discussion solely on the more individualistic outline of his own path” (122, 314–315). This admission along with the Einstein quotations and the statement in his popular book, in my view, support Holton’s position.

  128. Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (New York: Bonanza Books, 1956). I am using the edition published in 1956.

  129. Ibid., 53.

  130. Robert Shankland, “Conversations with Albert Einstein,” American Journal of Physics 31 (1963), 47–57. Shankland writes: “The following account of talks with Professor Einstein are the notes made by the writer in Princeton immediately after each of five visits about ten years ago. They were originally written without any thought of publication, but rather as a private record of very wonderful experiences. However, since they may contain matters of interest to others, it has been decided to publish them” (47).

  131. Ibid., 48.

  132. Ibid., 55.

  133. Quoted in Holton, “‘Crucial’ Experiment” (ref. 112), 343.

  134. Quoted in ibid., 343–44.

  135. Stephen Brush, “Why Was Relativity Accepted?, ” Physics in Perspective 1 (1999), 184–214, on 187.

  136. Although the history of the acceptance of special relativity is a fascinating story (Stanley Goldberg, Understanding Relativity (Basel: Birkhauser, 1984); Thomas F. Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Relativity (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1987); Stephen Brush, “Why Was Relativity Accepted?” Physics in Perspective 1 (1999), 184–214; and Arthur Miller, Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981)), I will discuss here only the possible evidential role of the Michelson-Morley experiment.

  137. Stachel, “Einstein and Michelson” (ref. 111), 179.

  138. Brush, “Relativity” (ref. 135), 184.

  139. J. Sánchez-Ron, “The Role Played by Symmetries in the Introduction of Relativity in Great Britain,” in M. G. Doncel, A. Hermann, L. Michel and A. Pais, eds., Symmetries in Physics (1600–1980) (Barcelona: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona 1987), 166–93, on 170.

  140. Goldberg, Understanding Relativity (ref. 136), 217.

  141. Brush, “Why Was Relativity Accepted?” (ref. 135), 195.

  142. Glick, Comparative Reception of Relativity (ref. 136).

  143. Brush, “Why Was Relativity Accepted?” (ref. 135), 207.

  144. Mary Hesse, Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics (London: Nelson and Sons 1961), 226.

  145. Max von Laue, Das Relativitätsprinzip (Braunschweig: Friedrich Viewig and Son, 1911), 13. Quoted in Holton, “Einstein, Michelson, and the ‘Crucial’ Experiment” (ref. 112), 290.

  146. Goldberg, “Relativity” (ref. 136), 275–93.

  147. Ibid., 276.

  148. Wolfgang Panofsky and Melba Phillips, Classical Electricity and Magnetism (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1955). This was the textbook used in my own graduate course in electrodynamics in 1960.

  149. Goldberg, “Relativity” (ref. 136), 287–88.

  150. Ibid.

  151. Robert Leighton, Principles of Modern Physics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 5. Emphasis added.

  152. Holton, “Einstein, Michelson, and the ‘Crucial’ Experiment” (ref. 112), 350n25.

  153. Charles Kittel, Walter D. Knight, and Malvin A. Ruderman, The Berkeley Physics Course, vol. 1, Mechanics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 332.

  154. Richard Feynman, Robert P. Leighton, and Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol 1 (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1963), 15–3.

  155. James Richards, Francis Sears, M. Russell Wehr, and Mark Zemansky, Modern College Physics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1962), 769.

  156. Gerald Holton, Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physics (Cambrdge, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1952), 506.

  157. John R. Taylor, Chris D. Zafiratos, and Michael A. Dubson, Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2004), 9.

  158. “Michelson-Morley experiment,” Wikipedia, accessed January 15, 2016, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment. The quotation is attributed to the historian of science Richard Staley’s Einstein’s Generations (ref. 127), but no page reference is given. Staley favors a view that the Michelson-Morley experiment was central to the development of special relativity. As we have discussed, other historians of science disagree.

  159. For a more detailed history of this experiment, see Franklin, Good Experiment? (ref. 4), ch. 13.

  160. Ellis and Wooster, “Average Energy” (ref. 3).

  161. Lise Meitner and W. Orthmann, “Über eine absolute Bestimmung der Energie der primären β-Strahlen von Radium E,” Zeitschrift für Physik 60 (1930), 143–55.

  162. The model of the nucleus accepted at the time, despite difficulties, was that the nucleus contained only protons and electrons. Thus the nucleus of 7N14, which had a mass of fourteen atomic units and a charge of seven, consisted of fourteen protons and seven electrons. Because the electron and the proton each has spin one-half, this gave a half-integral spin for the nucleus. The measured spin, however, was one. Hence, there was a problem. Pauli assumed that the neutrino was a constituent of the nucleus, which solved the problem.

  163. Enrico Fermi, “Attempt at a Theory of β Rays,” II Nuovo Cimento 11 (1934), 1–21; “Versuch einer Theorie der β-Strahlen,” Zeitschrift fur Physik 88 (1934), 161–77.

  164. Henri Becquerel, “Sur les radiations emises par phosphorescence,” Comptes rendus des seances de l’Academie des Sciences 122 (1896), 420–21; “Sur les radiations emises par phosphorescence,” Comptes rendus des seances de l’Academie des Sciences 122 (1896), 501–3; “Sur quelques proprietes nouvelles des radiations invisibles emises par divers corps phosphorescents,” Comptes rendus des seances de l’Academie des Sciences 122 (1896), 559–64; “Sur les radiations invisibles emises par les sels d’uranium,” Comptes rendus des seances de l’Academie des Sciences 122 (1896), 689–94; “Sur les proprietes differentes des radiations invisibles emises par les sels d’uranium, et du rayonnement de la paroi anticathodique d’un tube de Crookes,” Comptes rendus des seances de l’Academie des Sciences 122 (1896), 762–67; Ernest Rutherford, “Uranium Radiation and the Electrical Conduction Produced by It,” Philosophical Magazine 47 (1899), 109–63.

  165. William H. Bragg, “On the Absorption of Alpha Rays and on the classification of Alpha Rays from Radium,” Philosophical Magazine 8 (1904), 719–75.

  166. Henri Becquerel, “Sur la transparence de l’aluminium pour la rayonnement du radium,” Comptes rendus des seances de l’Academie des Sciences 130 (1900), 1154–57; Walter Kaufmann, “Die elekromagnetische Masse des Elektrons,” Phyisikalische Zeitschrift 4 (1902), 54–57; James Chadwick, “Intensitatsverteilung im magnetischen Spektrum der β-Strahlen von Radium B + C,” Verhandlungen der deutschen physikalischen Gesellschaft 16 (1914), 383–91. For further discussion, see Allan Franklin, Are There Really Neutrinos? An Evidential History (Cambridge, MA, Perseus Books, 2001), ch. 1.

  167. Charles Ellis and William Wooster, “The β-ray Type of Disintegration,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 22 (1925), 849–60.

  168. Ibid., 857.

  169. Ibid., 858.

  170. Ibid., 859.

  171. K. Emeleus, “The Number of β-particles from Radium E,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 22 (1924), 400–403. Not all physicists agreed with their conclusion.

  172. Ellis and Wooster, “Disintegration” (ref. 168), 860.

  173. Ibid., 860.

  174. Ibid., 858. Emphasis added.

  175. Niels Bohr, Hendrik Kramers, and John C. Slater, “The Quantum Theory of Radiation,” Philosophical Magazine 47 (1924), 785–802.

  176. Compton and Simon, “Directed Quanta” (ref. 49).

  177. Ellis and Wooster, “Average Energy” (ref. 3).

  178. Ibid., 109.

  179. Ibid.

  180. Ibid., 110.

  181. Ibid. Emphasis added.

  182. Ibid., 111.

  183. Ibid.

  184. Ibid., 111–12.

  185. Ellis and Wooster were faced with a Catch-22. If they measured the total energy emitted they could not count the number of electrons. If they counted the number of electrons, they could not be sure that they were measuring the total energy emitted. The term “Catch-22” derives from Joseph Heller’s novel of that name: “There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 46.

  186. Ellis and Wooster, “Average Energy” (ref. 3), 112.

  187. Ibid., 113.

  188. Ibid.

  189. Ibid.

  190. Ibid.

  191. Ibid., 114.

  192. Ibid.

  193. Ibid.

  194. Ibid., 115.

  195. Ibid.

  196. Ibid., 117.

  197. Ibid.

  198. Ibid., 118.

  199. Ibid.

  200. Ibid., 120.

  201. Ibid.

  202. Ibid., 121. Ellis and Wooster proposed a possible explanation for their result. They quoted Ernest Rutherford’s suggestion that there was “a concentrated inner nucleus carrying a positive charge surrounded at a distance by a number of electrons and then at a distance by a number of neutral satellites [alpha particles] circulating around the system.” Ellis and Wooster, “Average Energy” (ref. 3), 122. This was a variant of the proton-electron model of the nucleus then popular, despite some difficulties. The outer region, composed of alpha particles was quantized, which would result in α decay with a unique energy. They regarded the electron region as unquantized, which allowed for the continuous energy spectrum in β decay. That would, however, require that γ rays of definite energy, observed in nuclear decay, could not be emitted by the electron region, but would have to be emitted by the positively charged regions of the nucleus. Ellis and Wooster worried that electrons in unquantized states within an atomic nucleus was contrary to “modern views.” They remarked that, “At first sight it would certainly appear to be so, but this is not necessarily the case.” Ellis and Wooster, “Average Energy” (ref. 3), 122–23. They proposed a possible scenario for this. This model of the nucleus and for radioactive decay did not attract much attention in the physics literature.

  203. Ibid.

  204. Meitner and Orthmann, “Über einee absolute Bestimmung” (ref. 162).

  205. Meitner, letter to Ellis, quoted in Ruth Sime, Lise Meitner, A Life in Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 105.

  206. David Halliday, Introductory Nuclear Physics (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1955), 131.

  207. K. Krane, Introductory Nuclear Physics (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1988).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Gerald Holton and Michel Janssen, both of whom read the section on the Michelson–Morley experiment and provided helpful suggestions and whose work informed that section. I would also like to thank Robert Crease, Joseph Martin, and Peter Pesic for their very careful editing of this essay.

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    Allan Franklin

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Correspondence to Allan Franklin.

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Allan Franklin is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Colorado. He works on the history and philosophy of experiment in modern physics.

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Franklin, A. Physics Textbooks Don’t Always Tell the Truth. Phys. Perspect. 18, 3–57 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-016-0178-z

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