parity nonconservation

Selected Image Date Publication Author(s) Citation title Comments
 
January 16, 1957 New York Times Harold M. Schmeck, Jr. Basic Concept in Physics Is Reported Upset in Tests; Conservation of Parity Law in Nuclear Theory Challenged by Scientists at Columbia and Princeton

Big media splash by Columbia on parity violation discoveries. Page One above the fold. Franklin remembers they stopped classes for the announcement.
 
February 15, 1957 Physical Review C. S. Wu, E. Ambler, R. W. Hayward, D. D. Hoppes, and R. P. Hudson Experimental Test of Parity Conservation in Beta Decay

Wu’s famous experiment that confirmed the Lee-Yang suggestion that left-right symmetry is not conserved in weak interactions. Another concurrently published experiment by Garwin and Lederman confirmed the theory in meson decays.
February 15, 1957 Richard L. Garwin, Leon Lederman, and Marcel Weinrich Observations of the Failure of Conservation of Parity and Charge Conjugation in Meson Decays: the Magnetic Moment of the Free Muon

Garwin-Lederman confirms parity violation in an experiment using mesons
 
1960 C. S. Wu The Neutrino

Chapter in Wolfgang Pauli memorial volume edited by Fierz and Weisskopf shows Wu's summary of recoil experiment history in 1960, citing her CU-172 report.
April 10, 1977 Nature Richard L. Garwin and Leon M. Lederman History of parity violation experiment

Years later in a letter to the editor of Nature, Garwin and Lederman clarify matters of priority and authorship in events leading up to the announcement parity violation experiments.
December 10, 1984 Krishna Myneni Symmetry Destroyed: The Failure of Parity

Basic introduction to the parity-violation experiments.
February 13, 1997 Nature Nicholas Kurti and Christine Sutton Parity and chivalry in nuclear physics

Argument by Oxford physicists for greater credit for parity violation experiment to the NBS team. Does Wu bear responsibility for others who have called it the Wu experiment, downplaying the NBS contribution. Garwin and Lederman replied in a letter to the editor.
1999 NIST Special Publication 925 Elio Passaglia with Karma A. Beal A Unique Institution: The National Bureau of Standards 1950-1969

Retrospective of the Parity Violation experiment from the NBS perspective.
2001 NIST Special Publication 958: A Century of Excellence 1901-2000 Ralph P. Hudson Reversal of the Parity Conservation Law in Nuclear Physics
 
March 1, 2001 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Leon Lidofsky CHIEN-SHIUNG WU 29 May 1912-16 February 1997

Lidofsky's appreciation of Wu's career does not address the Rustad-Ruby affair, but is nonetheless illuminating.
June 7, 2001 American Institute of Physics Oral Histories Interviewed by W. Patrick McCray Richard Garwin Oral History

Covers Garwin's recollections of the parity violation experiments, including his role directing Wu to NBS and the circumstances of his and Lederman's K-meson experiment.
2013 Oral History Project Interviewed by Sara Lippincott Oral History: Murray Gell-Mann (b. 1929)

Gell-Mann discusses the role that challenges to the RR experiment played in the priority dispute over first publication of the universal V–A theory.
2013 Oral History Project Interviewed by Sara Lippincott Oral History: Murray Gell-Mann (b. 1929)

Gell-Mann discusses the role that challenges to the RR experiment played in the priority dispute over first publication of the universal V–A theory.