Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Conceptually Important Experiments: Those That Lead to Significant Changes in Theory
1. Gregor Mendel, “Experiments in Plant Hybridization”: The Best Experiments Ever Done!
2. The Discovery of Parity Nonconservation
3. The Meselson-Stahl Experiment“: The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology”
4. CP or Not CP: A Convincing Experiment
5. The Nondiscovery of Parity Nonconservation: A Missed Opportunity
Part II. Measuring a Quantity of Importance
6. Measuring a Quantity of Importance and Testing an Equation: Millikan and Planck’s Constant
7. Robert Millikan and the Charge of the Electron
Part III. Evidence for Entities
8. “Observing” the Neutrino: The Reines-Cowan Experiments
9. The Discovery of the η Meson
10. Is There a Second Neutrino?
11. The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: The Discovery of the Higgs Boson
Part IV. Solving a Vexing Problem
12. William Wilson and the Absorption of β Rays
13. Ellis and Wooster, the Continuous Energy Spectrum in β Decay: Something Is Missing
14. The Solar-Neutrino Problem
Part V. Measuring Nothing
15. The Disappearance of the 17-keV Neutrino
16. The Michelson-Morley Experiment
17. A Tale of Two Experiments: Is There a Fifth Force?
18. The Search for Magnetic Monopoles
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index