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vol IV chap 13 sect 3

Volume IV: Universe

Previous: 13.2. Timeline of the main developments in high energy physics.

13.3. Levels of operation of the mechanisms of knowing.

According to Piaget and García (1988) there are three levels of operation of the mechanisms of knowing: the level intra for the description of objects, the level inter for the transformation of concepts and the level trans for the construction of structures. These levels of operation are associated with three categories describing the scenario and the results of contributions made by Nobel laureates working in high energy physics: the laboratory works, the experimental purposes, and the theorical consequences.

The operation of the level intra is connected to the description of laboratories where research is done. These are the places and technological arrangements where tools, devices, instruments, apparatuses, and installations are the cognitive objects defining the experimental settings used to explore and learn about high energy physics.

The operation of the level inter is connected to the description of experiments for answering questions and proposing further challenges. These are the activities where concepts are tested by obtaining the values of observable and measurable quantities and by understanding their meanings. Cognitive relationships among physical concepts are proposed or proved for improving or transforming the explanations of physical concepts.

The operation of the level trans is connected to the description of theories as cognitive structures serving to interpret, explain, and sometimes predict physical phenomena. These are the important components describing the evolution of the body of knowledge called high energy physics.

The selected contributions of the Nobel laureates that have been considered in previous Sections 13.1 and 13.2 are now organized in terms of each one of the levels of operation of the mechanism of knowing. In each case, the years indicated in parentheses correspond to the date where the contribution was initiated or reported.

Level intra: the laboratory works.

  • Röntgen produces X-rays (1895).
  • Wilson constructs a cloud chamber to register the tracks of particles (1911).
  • Aston develops the mass spectrograph (1919).
  • Lawrence builds a cyclotron for accelerating protons (1929).
  • Blackett and Occhialini study the passage of particles through cloud chambers (1932).
  • Shull uses beams of neutrons created in a nuclear reactor (1946).
  • Powell studies nuclear processes by introducing photographic methods (1947).
  • Brockhouse applies slow neutron spectroscopy to analyze nuclear properties (1950).
  • Alvarez improves the bubble chamber and introduces computer-based methods for analyzing large quantities of data (1950).
  • Glaser invents the bubble chamber (1952).
  • Giacconi starts studying emission of X-rays from stars and galaxies (1960).
  • Charpak invents a multiwire proportional chamber (1968).

Level inter: the experimental purposes.

  • Becquerel discovers spontaneous radioactivity (1896).
  • Thomson discovers the electron (1897).
  • Pierre and Marie Curie discover polonium and radium (1898).
  • Rutherford shows that radioactive elements generate ionized helium atoms and electrons (1899).
  • Marie Curie produces radium as a pure metal (1910).
  • Millikan determines the electron’s charge (1910).
  • Rutherford produces transmutations of atomic nuclei (1919).
  • Compton studies the dispersion of X-ray photons after collision with electrons (1922).
  • Davisson and Thomson demonstrate the diffraction of electrons (1927).
  • Chadwick confirms the existence of neutrons (1932).
  • Anderson discovers the positron (1932).
  • Cockcroft and Walton artificially produce transmutation of atoms (1932).
  • Frédéric Joliot and Irène Joliot-Curie create artificially the first radioactive element (1934).
  • Fermi produces artificial radioactivity by neutron bombardment (1934).
  • Hahn and Strassman discover the fission of heavy nuclei (1939).
  • Hofstadter studies electron scattering in atomic nuclei (1950).
  • Reines and Cowan prove the existence of neutrinos (1950).
  • Segrè and Chamberlain confirm the existence of the antiproton (1955).
  • Mössbauer investigates the inner structure of nuclei and nucleons (1958).
  • Davis detects neutrinos emitted from the Sun (1960).
  • Lederman, Schwartz and Steinberger discover the muon neutrino (1962).
  • Cronin and Fitch find violations in matter-antimatter symmetry (1964).
  • Friedman, Kendall and Taylor study collisions among high-energy electrons with protons and neutrons (1970).
  • Richter and Ting discover the J/psi particle and prove the existence of the charm quark (1974).
  • Perl discovers the tau lepton (1974-1977).
  • Koshiba detects neutrinos burst from a supernova (1980).
  • Rubbia and van der Meer demonstrate the existence of W and Z particles (1983).
  • Genzel and Ghez start mapping the orbits of stars to reveal the existence of a black hole (1990).
  • Kajita discovers that neutrinos switch identities before arriving to Earth (1998).
  • McDonald studies neutrinos created in nuclear reactions in the Sun (2000).
  • Experiments conducted at the CERN confirm the existence of the Higgs particle (2012).

Level tran: the theorical consequences.

  • de Broglie proposes the wave nature of the electron (1924).
  • Pauli proposes the exclusion principle for electrons (1925).
  • Wigner studies the force binding the nucleons together and their symmetries (1933).
  • Yukawa predicts the existence of mesons (1934).
  • Bethe studies energy production in stars. (1938-1939).
  • Goeppert Mayer provides evidence of the significance of the magic nuclear numbers (1948).
  • Jensen develops a nuclear shell model (1949).
  • Tomonaga, Schwinger and Feynman develop quantum electrodynamics (1948).
  • Rainwater proposes the spheroidal nuclear model (1950).
  • Bohr and Mottelson study rotational motion in nuclei (1952-1953).
  • Gell-Mann classifies elementary particles and their interactions (1953).
  • Yang and Lee propose that left-right symmetry is violated in weak interactions (1956).
  • Glashow, Salam and Weinberg explain the structure of the electroweak force (1960).
  • Nambu explains spontaneous symmetry violations (1960).
  • Englert, Brout and Higgs propose a theory of how particles acquire mass (1964).
  • Penrose proposes mathematical tools for describing black holes (1964).
  • t'Hooft and Veltman explain the quantum structure of electroweak interaction (1970).
  • Kobayashi and Maskawa explain the asymmetry in the decay of kaons (1972).
  • Gross, Politzer and Wilczek develop Quantum ChromoDynamics (1973).

REFERENCES

J. Piaget and R. Garcia. (1988). Psychogenesis and the History of Science. Columbia University Press.

Appendices.