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Murray Gell-Mann - Associated production, isotopic spin and strangeness (69/200)

4,559 views · Published 25 May 2016 · 1:06 · Indexed 26 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2016 · Science & Technology

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New York-born physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019) was a theoretical physicist. His considerable contributions to physics include the theory of quantum chromodynamics. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. [Listener: Geoffrey West; date recorded: 1997]

TRANSCRIPT: I didn't know about the associated production ideas. When I worked on the isotopic spin I was just thinking about isotopic spin, and it’s only afterwards when I proposed the idea that people told me about associated production. Later on, in writing about it in the... in The Scientific American and elsewhere, I described it as if — for pedagogical purposes — as if I had first heard about associated production and then within that idea had suggested strangeness and isotopic spin. But that isn't true. I had never heard of associated production, I just developed the idea of isotopic spin and strangeness, and then discovered that it was a special case of something that people had been discussing called associated production. But it was a much more restrictive case and forbade a great many reactions that the associated production idea allowed; such as neutron plus neutron gives lambda plus lambda, and such as the thing I discussed with Courtenay Wright on the phone: if the charges had been the opposite it would have been forbidden.

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