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Observation and Annihilation: The Discovery of the Antiproton

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Abstract

This paper is the first investigation of the events associated with the discovery of the antiproton. The 1955 observation of the antiproton by Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segrè, Clyde Wiegand, and Thomas Ypsilantis was “no surprise,” in Chamberlain’s words, and might therefore be understood as a classic example of an experimental proof of an existing theory—except there was no complete theory—at best it was a further validation of Dirac’s 1930 prediction of antiparticles. Instead, I argue, it became a contest between the serendipitous observations of cosmic-ray events and the deliberate observation possible with the new accelerator-based experiments. I show that the discovery was an extended event and was seen by the physicists involved as emerging from a combination of supporting experiments—the counter-based detection of antiprotons was accepted as proof of discovery only with the supporting images of antiproton annihilations.

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Notes

  1. Hyperon at this time was a loose term referring to any particle with a mass greater than that of a proton, as compared to its more precise term in modern particle physics where it is a baryon containing one or more strange quarks, but no charm, bottom, or top quark. This compares to mesons, “middle” particles, which at the times referred to particles of mass intermediate to electrons and protons.

  2. Schein’s name was consistently misspelt throughout the article as “Schien.”.

  3. In 1950 the abbreviation “BeV” (billion electron volts) was in general use in the United States of America to represent 109 eV, hence the name “Bevatron” of the Berkeley accelerator. By 1960, the internationally accepted alternative “GeV” (giga-electron-volt) had taken over.

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  4. For example: Xavier Roqué, “The Manufacture of the Positron,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 28, no. 1 (1997), 73–129; Michelangelo De Maria and Arturo Russo, “The Discovery of the Positron,” Rivista di storia della scienza 2 (1985), 237–86; Norwood Russell Hanson, “Discovering the Positron (I),” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 12, no. 47 (1961), 194–214; “Discovering the Positron (II),” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 12, no. 48 (1962), 299–313.

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  53. Gerson Goldhaber, “Early Work at the Bevatron: A Personal Account,” in Brown, Dresden, and Hoddeson, eds., Pions to Quarks (ref. 3), 260–72. The conference, the Second International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics, was held at Fermilab on May 1–4, 1985. Lectures and discussions of the physicists and historians were published as Brown, Dresden, and Hoddeson, eds., Pions to Quarks (ref. 3).

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  55. Piccioni, “Antiproton Discovery,” (ref. 54), 285. In 1972 Oreste Piccioni initiated a lawsuit against Segrè and Chamberlain, claiming he revealed a design for the antiproton experiment to Segrè and Chamberlain in December 1954 after the men had agreed to work together with him on the experiment on the Bevatron. Gloria B. Lubkin, “Piccioni Sues for Share of Antiproton Credit,” Physics Today 25, no. 9 (1972), 69–71. The Court of Appeals dismissed the case due to statute of limitations without hearing it on its merits. Piccioni, “Antiproton Discovery” (ref. 54), 285

  56. Goldhaber, “Early Work” (ref. 53), 261–25.

  57. Chamberlain, “Discovery of the Antiproton” (ref. 3), 276.

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  59. Walter H. Barkas, Robert W. Birge, Warren W. Chupp, A. Gösta Ekspong, Gerson Goldhaber, Sulamith Goldhaber, Harry H. Heckman, Donald H. Perkins, et al., “Antiproton-Nucleon Annihilation Process (Antiproton Collaboration Experiment),” Physical Review 105, no. 3 (1957), 1037–58.

  60. Graham Hale, Owen Chamberlain: Physicist at Los Alamos, Berkeley Professor, 1950–1989, and Nobel Laureate (Berkeley: University of California, Regional Oral History Office, History of Science and Technology Program, the Bancroft Library, 1976), 176.

  61. Jack Steinberger, “A Particular View of Particle Physics in the Fifties,” in Brown, Dresden, and Hoddeson, eds., Pions to Quarks (ref. 3), 307–30, on 307.

  62. Erik Hulthén, “Introduction to Laureates, 1959,” in S. Stuart, ed., Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942–1962 (Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing Company, 1964), 636.

  63. Chamberlain, ”Observation of Antiprotons” (ref. 1), 948.

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  80. Goldhaber, “Early Work” (ref. 53), 269.

  81. Goldhaber, interview with Pavlish (ref. 79).

  82. Segrè, interview with Weiner and Richman (ref. 53).

  83. Allan Franklin, Shifting Standards: Experiments in Particle Physics in the Twentieth Century (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), provided further detailed examination of the changes in “necessary and sufficient conditions” for high-energy physics discoveries in this illuminating 2013 book. Of particular relevance is the prologue “The Rise of the Sigmas,” where he discusses the changes in both journal policy and unwritten laboratory policy, regarding the need for a “five-standard-deviation-effect” before “discovery” results were claimed in public.

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    Kevin Orrman-Rossiter

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Kevin Orrman-Rossiter is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, specializing in the history and philosophy of modern physics, focusing on antimatter, space exploration and the Nobel Prizes in physics.

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Orrman-Rossiter, K. Observation and Annihilation: The Discovery of the Antiproton. Phys. Perspect. 23, 3–24 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-021-00271-7

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