HON 494

The Higgs, Quarks and the Big Bang

Selected Nobel Lectures

The following are required reading for the class. Oral and written reports will be given by the person listed in red.

Carl D. Anderson (1936) “The production and properties of positrons” [Matthew Weser – Feb. 25]

"for his discovery of the positron" (Discovery of antimatter)

Robert Hofstadter (1961) “The electron scattering method and its application to the structure of nuclei and nucleons” [Brooks Benard – March 18]

"for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons"

Antony Hewish (1974) “Pulsars and high density physics” [Erin Shear – March 4]

"for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars"

(with Sir Martin Ryle)

Robert W. Wilson (1978) “The cosmic microwave background radiation” [Gabriel Wasserman – April 10]

"for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"

(with Arno Penzias)

Sheldon Lee Glashow (1979) “Toward a unified theory – threads in a tapestry” [Alex Becker – April 1]

Steven Weinberg (1979) “Conceptual foundations of the unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions” [Andrew Herschfelt – April 1]

"for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current"

(with Abdus Salam)

Richard E. Taylor (1990) “Deep inelastic scattering: the early years” [Connor Davey – March 20]

"for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics"

(with Jerome I. Friedman and Henry W. Kendall)

Russell A. Hulse (1993) “The discovery of the binary pulsar” [Catherine Miller-Haskell – March 25]

"for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"

(with Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.)

Frederick Reines (1995) “The neutrino: from poltergeist to particle” [Cesar Gradilla – Feb. 27]

"for the detection of the neutrino"

Martin L. Perl (1995) “Reflections on the discovery of the tau lepton” [Tsz Chan – April 8]

"for the discovery of the tau lepton"

Gerardus ‘t Hooft (1999) “A confrontation with infinity” [Maximilian Christman – April 3]

"for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"

(with Martinus J. G. Veltman)

David J. Gross (2004) “The discovery of Asymptotic Freedom and the emergence of QCD” [Mike Clark – April 15]

Frank A. Wilczek (2004) “Asymptotic freedom: from paradox to paradigm” [John Smith – April 15]

"for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"

(with H. David Politzer)

John C. Mather (2006) “From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and beyond” [Max Edwards – April 22]

(Watch the video of the lecture.)

"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"

(with George F. Smoot)

Yoichiro Nambu (2008) “Spontaneous symmetry breaking in particle physics: a case of cross fertilization” [Sajid Anwar – April 17]

"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics"

Adam G. Riess (2011) “My path to the accelerating universe” [Anna Essex – April 22]

"for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae"

(with Saul Perlmutter and Brian P. Schmidt)

Peter W. Higgs (2013) “Evading the Goldstone Theorem” [Jon Bailey – April 24]

"for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider"