Product Description
In this intriguing and accessible book, physicist Allan Franklin examines the experiments on neutrino oscillations. He argues that this history gives 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. Only recently, the scientific process has provided evidence of the elusive neutrino. Written in a style accessible to any reader with a college education in physics, Are There Really Neutrinos? is of interest to students and researchers alike. |
Science and logic 
Look, let it be said upfront that no physicist credibly doubts that neutrinos exist. A couple of Nobels have been awarded to Cowan and Reines for in fact detecting these.But Franklin has chosen neutrinos as a pedagogic vessel. He shows how in the early years, when neutrinos were first postulated, in order to "save" the law of conservation of energy, that the evidence for them was indeed flimsy. Not totally lacking, but sketchy. A touch of faith was required. He traces the history of neutrino research, and shows how, painfully slowly, evidence was accumulated. Along the way, you can see scientific logic in action, not just in one scientist's work, but in an entire community.
June 20, 2004 | |
