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This book describes the development of our understanding of the strong interactions in particle physics, through its competing ideas and personalities, its false starts, blind alleys, and moments of glory – culminating with the author's discovery of quarks, real particles living in a deeper layer of reality. How were quarks discovered, what did physicists think they were, and what did they turn out to be? These questions are answered through a collection of personal remembrances. The focus is on the reality of quarks, and why that reality made them so difficult to accept. How Feynman and Gell-Mann practiced physics, with their contrasting styles and motivations, presented different obstacles to accepting this reality. And how was the author, as a graduate student, able to imagine their existence, and act on it? Science buffs, students, and experts alike will find much here to pique their interest and learn about quarks along the way.
Chapter 4 on Richard Feynman, my theoretical physics thesis advisor, is a collection of vignettes that reveal aspects of behavior and thought that contributed to his mystique and unique accomplishments in physics.
After relating the history behind Feynman’s V-A theory of party violation, much of it in Feynman’s own words, the rest of the chapter is based on my personal interactions with Feynman lasting for a little more than twenty years, from the time I arrived at Caltech in 1959 till I left in 1981. Feynman’s attitude towards experimental results related to parity violation provides an informative background to how he would handle experimental information related to the discovery of quarks. The intent here, and in the remainder of the Chapter, is to give the reader a sense of how Feynman thought about physics, how he practiced it, and what he valued. His struggle with constituent quarks (aces), and what to make of them, lasted considerably longer than a decade, passing though several phases, including one with partons, but eventually ending with his fully accepting their reality.
There are many representations of time reversal symmetry, including PT, CT, and CPT, but only the standard time reversal operator T is associated with an arrow of time itself.
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