Are There Really Neutrinos?

by Franklin, Allan

• ISBN13: 9780738202655
• ISBN10: 0738202657
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-01
• Publisher: PERSEUS BOOKS

Summary

In this intriguing and accessible book, Allan Franklin argues that science is a reasonable enterprise that produces knowledge of the physical world based on valid experimental evidence and critical discussion. He does this by looking at the history of the neutrino, which he traces from the discovery of radioactivity to recent experiments on neutrino oscillations. He argues that this history has given us good reason to believe in the existence of the neutrino, a particle that interacts so weakly with matter that its interaction length is measured in light years of lead. If science can provide evidence for the reality of such an elusive particle then we can reasonably conclude that it provides us with knowledge.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction
Postmodernism, Constructivism, and Science	5	(6)
Postmodern Criticism	5	(5)
Constructivist Criticism	10	(1)
A Brief Philosophical Digression: Scientific Realism	11	(2)
The Road to the Neutrino	13	(48)
The Discovery of Radioactivity	14	(14)
J.J. Thomson and the Electron	17	(4)
What Are the Becquerel Rays? The Alphabet: α, β, γ	21	(7)
The Energy Spectrum in β Decay	28	(32)
Monoenergetic Electrons and Exponential Absorption	28	(5)
The Emperor Has No Clothes	33	(9)
William Wilson
Line Spectra in β Decay?	42	(5)
The Continuous Energy Spectrum	47	(13)
Discussion	60	(1)
The Neutrino Hypothesis	61	(28)
Bohr and the Nonconservation of Energy	63	(7)
Pauli and the Neutrino	70	(2)
The Immediate Reaction	72	(17)
Chadwick and the Neutron	72	(5)
Fermi's Theory of β Decay	77	(12)
Toward a Universal Fermi Interaction	89	(36)
Is Fermi's Theory Correct?	90	(10)
The Challenge of the Konopinski-Uhlenbeck Theory	90	(7)
The Interaction Takes Form: Gamow and Teller	97	(3)
Muons and Pions	100	(10)
β-Decay Theory Following World War II	110	(15)
The Energy Spectrum in β Decay, Again	110	(6)
Radium E, Again	116	(1)
Angular-Correlation Experiments	117	(8)
Fermi's Theory: The Final Act	125	(34)
The Discovery of Parity Nonconservation	125	(9)
The Suggestion of V - A Theory	134	(1)
The Resolution of the Discrepancies and the Confirmation of the V - A Theory	135	(7)
The Angular Correlation in 6He	136	(3)
The Electron Decay of the Pion	139	(2)
The Neutrino is Left-Handed. The Triumph of V - A	141	(1)
Discussion	142	(2)
Digression: The Nondiscovery of Parity Nonconservation	144	(15)
Did the Experiments Show Parity Nonconservation?	144	(6)
An Oddity	150	(1)
The Reasons Why Not	151	(8)
``Observing'' the Neutrino: the Reines-Cowan Experiments	159	(24)
Digression: And Now for Something Completely Different	160	(5)
Dancoff's Instrumentalism	160	(3)
An Interim Case for Realism	163	(2)
Finding the Poltergeist	165	(14)
Commentary	179	(4)
How Much? The Mass of the Neutrino	183	(36)
Weighing the Poltergeist	183	(19)
Digression: The Appearance and the Disappearance of the 17-keV Neutrino	202	(16)
The Appearance	204	(7)
The Disappearance	211	(1)
The Tide Ebbs	211	(3)
The Kink is Dead	214	(4)
Discussion	218	(1)
How Many? Whose?	219	(30)
One?, Two?, Three?...	219	(19)
The Discovery of the Muon Neutrino, vμ	220	(4)
Do I hear Three? The Discovery of the τ Lepton and its Neutrino, vτ	224	(8)
The Mass of vμ	232	(3)
The Mass of vτ	235	(3)
Whose Neutrino Is It, Majorana's or Dirac's?	238	(11)
The Missing Solar Neutrinos	249	(34)
Davis's Homestake Mine Experiment	250	(10)
Other Solar Neutrino Experiments	260	(23)
Gallium Experiments	260	(2)
The Soviet-American Gallium Experiment (SAGE)	262	(5)
The GALLEX Experiment	267	(5)
The Kamiokonde II Experiment	272	(11)
Neutrino Oscillations	283	(30)
Theory	283	(5)
Experimental Tests	288	(23)
Solar Neutrino Experiments	288	(2)
Atmospheric Neutrinos	290	(11)
Accelerator-Produced Neutrinos: The Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND)	301	(10)
Discussion	311	(2)
Conclusion: There Are Neutrinos	313	(22)
References	335	(23)
Index	358