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steampunker Level 16 
VigilantePosts: 61 |
Okay, a lame excuse to help me understand something. But I'll give 1000 DP to who helps me figure out "The Amazing Discovery at Columbia off Yang and Lee".
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pixielo Level 20 
BenefactorPosts: 2551 |
I'm guessing that you mean the Yang and Lee who won the 1957 Nobel prize "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles?" In that case, you have to revisit the idea of what particle parity means in this case--the violation of the parity law in weak interactions. I'm going to apologize right now for all the Wiki links, but they do really have this covered. Read this bit first, and use your hand to demonstrate chirality, or draws some pictures for easy reference.
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steampunker Level 16
VigilantePosts: 61 |
Yea, I won't accept the wiki-links as an answer, as I was already stumped by that explanation. I'll try to find you on IRC.
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pemungkah Level 7
BenefactorPosts: 4 |
Okay, the idea is that the universe should, at the subatomic level, not have a "handedness" - that is, there shouldn't be any way to derive a basic concept of left vs. right. At the subatomic level this works out like this: select a nucleus which has an intrinsic spin and which decays radioactively by emitting high-speed electrons (cobalt-60 is a good candidate). Orient a bunch of such nuclei so that their spins are in the same direction - say counterclockwise when viewed from above (this is easy with cobalt; a magnetic field will do it just fine). Count the numbers of electrons emitted upward and downward. If the universe doesn't have a preferred "handedness", then you should see pretty much the same number of electrons being emitted upward and downward. This would be "parity": equal chance of both directions. Execept you DON'T see this. There are more electrons emitted downward than upward, so there is a preferential direction. This means that a "mirror" experiment would emit particles with the opposite "handedness" tendency, so parity is not conserved. |
maltagirl Level 9
BenefactorPosts: 65 |
The internet is so educational... thanks steampunker for asking the question! (and of course pixielo and pemungkah for the responses) |
strype_mcclaine Level 7 
SeerPosts: 3 |
And now you know, and knowing is half the battle. |
bakester14 Level 7
SeerPosts: 170 |
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blubrick Level 7
SeerPosts: 28 |
Right now I feel a little like Lou Costello at the end of the "Who's on First?" sketch. I kinda know that now I know, but I don't really know what it is that I know now that I know it! Y'know? |
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