The weak interaction: Its history and impact on physics (Q2761902)

This lecture is published also in The Oskar Klein memorial lectures, Vol. 2 (World Scientic, Singapore, 2001). The author is one of the leading researchers in this field; from 46 cited works in the References, 6 are his own publications (many of them with coauthors). The dicussion of the history of weak interaction is combined with interesting personal reminiscences. All this is separated into three periods; Classical Period, 1898-1949 \((\beta\) decay, other weak interactions), Transition Period, 1949-1956 \((\mu\) decay, Fermi and Gamow-Teller couplings, \(\theta- \tau\) puzzle), Modern Period, starting in 1956 (breakthrough -- Rochester meeting, symmetry violations, time reversal, outstanding puzzles: missing symmetries, unseen quarks, physical vacuum).NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEA special fascination offer the author's reminiscences on contacts with Lise Meitner (who was then nearly 90) and with Enrico Fermi in his seminar at the University of Chicago (Fermi was also the author's thesis advisor), on establishing the Universal Fermi Interaction by the author with coauthors, on his wrong tries with the \(\theta-\tau\) puzzle, on the way to the theoretical paper (with Yang) on parity nonconservation etc.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe author concludes that the most challenging problems in present physics are: (1) the symmetry-breaking force, and (2) the structure of the vacuum.