Val Fitch The Nobel Prize in Physics 1980

autobiography

Big Bang Theory - The Premise The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment. According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of "black holes." Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called "singularities." Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something - a singularity. Where did it come from? We don't know. Why did it appear? We don't know. After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the "Big Bang"), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory. Big Bang Theory - Common Misconceptions There are many misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang theory. For example, we tend to imagine a giant explosion. Experts however say that there was no explosion; there was (and continues to be) an expansion. Rather than imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our current universe. Another misconception is that we tend to image the singularity as a little fireball appearing somewhere in space. According to the many experts however, space didn't exist prior to the Big Bang. Back in the late '60s and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don't know. We don't know where it came from, why it's here, or even where it is. All we really know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn't exist and neither did we. Big Bang Theory - The Only Plausible Theory? Is the standard Big Bang theory the only model consistent with these evidences? No, it's just the most popular one. Internationally renown Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."4 In 2003, Physicist Robert Gentry proposed an attractive alternative to the standard theory, an alternative which also accounts for the evidences listed above.5 Dr. Gentry claims that the standard Big Bang model is founded upon a faulty paradigm (the Friedmann-lemaitre expanding-spacetime paradigm) which he claims is inconsistent with the empirical data. He chooses instead to base his model on Einstein's static-spacetime paradigm which he claims is the "genuine cosmic Rosetta." Gentry has published several papers outlining what he considers to be serious flaws in the standard Big Bang model.6 Other high-profile dissenters include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfv?n, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp, and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term "the Big Bang" during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950. I was born the youngest of three children, on a cattle ranch in Cherry County, Nebraska, not far from the South Dakota border, on March 10, 1923. This is a very sparsely populated part of the United States and remote from any center of population. It seems incredible by modern standards that by the age of 20 my father, Fred Fitch, had acquired a ranch of more than 4 square miles and had persuaded a local school teacher, Frances Logsdon, to marry and join him in living there. They moved to the ranch just 20 years after the battle of Wounded Knee, which occurred about 40 miles northwest. I mention this because our living close to their reservation made the Sioux Indians very much a part of our environment. My father, while not fluent, spoke their language. They recognized his friendly interest on their behalf by making him an honorary chief. Not long after my birth my father was badly injured when a horse he was riding fell with him. He subsequently had to give up the physically strenuous activity associated with running a ranch and raising cattle. The family moved to Gordon, Nebraska, a town about 25 miles away, where my father entered the insurance business. All of my formal schooling through high school was in the public schools of Gordon. During this period my parents retained ownership of the ranch but the operation was largely left to others. E.B. White has defined farming as 10% agriculture and 90% fixing something that has gotten broken. My memories of ranching are primarily not the romantic ones of rounding up and branding cattle but rather of oiling windmills and fixing fences. Probably the most significant occurrence in my education came when, as a soldier in the U.S. Army in WWII, I was sent to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work on the Manhattan Project. The work I did there under the direction of Ernest Titterton, a member of the British Mission, was highly stimulating. The laboratory was small and even as a technician garbed in a military fatigue uniform I had the opportunity to meet and see at work many of the great figures in physics: Fermi, Bohr, Chadwick, Rabi, Tolman. I have recorded some of the experiences from those days in a chapter in All in Our Time, a book edited by Jane Wilson and published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. I spent 3 years at Los Alamos and in that period learned well the techniques of experimental physics. I observed that the most accomplished experimentalists were also the ones who knew most about electronics and electronic techniques were the first I learned. But mainly I learned, in approaching the measurement of new phenomena, not just to consider using existing apparatus but to allow the mind to wander freely and invent new ways of doing the job.

Robert Bacher, the leader of the physics division in which I worked, offered me a graduate assistantship at Cornell after the war but I still had to finish the work for an undergraduate degree. This I did at McGill University. And then another opportunity for graduate work came from Columbia and I ended up there working with Jim Rainwater for my Ph.D. thesis. One day in his of fice, which he shared at the time with Aage Bohr, he handed me a preprint of a paper by John Wheeler devoted to µ-mesic atoms. This paper emphasized, in the case of the heavier nuclei, the extreme sensitivity of the Is level to the size of the nucleus. Even though the radiation from these atoms had never been observed, these atomic systems might be a good thesis topic. At this same time a convergence of technical developments took place. The Columbia Nevis cyclotron was just coming into operation. The beams of (pi)-measons from the cyclotron contained an admixture of µ-measons which came frome the decay of the (pi)'s and which could be separated by range. Sodium iodide with thallium activation had just been shown by Hofstadter to be an excellent scintillation counter and energy spectrometer for gamma rays. And there were new phototubes just being produced by RCA which were suitable matches to sodium iodide crystals to convert the scintillations to electrical signals. The other essential ingredient to make a gamma-ray spectrometer was a multichannel pulse height analyzer which, utilizing my Los Alamos experience, I designed and built with the aid of a technician. The net result of all the effort for my thesis was the pioneering work on µ-mesic atoms. It is of interest to note that we came very close to missing the observation of the gamma-rays completely. Wheeler had calculated the 2p-1s transition energy in Pb, using the then accepted nuclear radius 1.4 A1/3 fermi, to be around 4.5 MeV. Correspondingly, we had set our spectrometer to look in that energy region. After several frustrating days, Rainwater suggested we broaden the range and then the peak appeared - not at 4.5 MeV but at 6 MeV! The nucleus was substantially smaller than had been deduced from other effects. Shortly afterwards Hofstadter got the same results from his electron scattering experiments. While the µ-mesic atom measurements give the rms radius of the nucleus with extreme accuracy the electron scattering results have the advantage of yielding many moments to the charge distribution. Now the best information is obtained by combining the results from both µ-mesic atoms and electron scattering. Subsequently, in making precise gamma-ray measurements to obtain a better mass value for the µ-meson, we found that substantial corrections for the vacuum polarization were required to get agreement with independent mass determinations. While the vacuum polarization is about 2% of the Lamb shift in hydrogen it is the very dominant electrodynamic correction in µ-mesic atoms.

My interest then shifted to the strange particles and K mesons but I had learned from my work at Columbia the delights of unexpected results and the challenge they present in understanding nature. I took a position at Princeton where, most often working with a few graduate students, I spent the next 20 years studying K-mesons. The ultimate in unexpected results was that which was recognized by the Nobel Foundation in 1980, the discovery of CP-violation. At any one time there is a natural tendency among physicists to believe that we already know the essential ingredients of a comprehensive theory. But each time a new frontier of observation is broached we inevitably discover new phenomena which force us to modify substantially our previous conceptions. I believe this process to be unending, that the delights and challenges of unexpected discovery will continue always.

It is highly improbable, a priori, to begin life on a cattle ranch and then appear in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in physics. But it is much less improbable to me when I reflect on the good fortune I have had in the ambiance provided by my parents, my family, my teachers, colleagues and students. I have two sons from my marriage to Elise Cunningham who died in 1972. In 1976 I married Daisy Harper who brought with her three stepchildren into my life.

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