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Lost Origins of the Third Generation of Quarks: Theory, Philosophy, and Experiment

Abstract.

Physicists generally attribute the introduction of a third generation of quarks (the “top” and “bottom” quarks) into the standard model of the elementary particles to a 1973 paper by Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa. I describe the historical background to that paper, emphasizing the largely forgotten role of theorists at Nagoya University and the “Nagoya model” they developed. Several of the authors of the Nagoya model embraced the philosophy of dialectical materialism, and I discuss the role that such metaphysical commitments play in physical theorizing. Both theoretical and experimental developments that generated great interest in Japan, and ultimately stimulated Kobayashi and Maskawa's 1973 work, went almost entirely unnoticed in the U.S. The episode exemplifies both the importance of untestable “themata” in developing new theories, and the difficulties that may arise when two parts of a research community work in relative isolation from one another.

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Staley, K. Lost Origins of the Third Generation of Quarks: Theory, Philosophy, and Experiment. Phys. perspect. 3, 210–229 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00000530

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00000530

  • Key words. Elementary particles, standard model, Nagoya model, dialectical materialism, Shoichi Sakata, Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa.