Abstract
IN the paper toy Lattes, Occhialini and Powell*, it is shown that cosmic ray mesons coming to the end of their track in a photographic emulsion rather frequently give rise to a secondary meson of kinetic energy about 4 MeV., and no other visible particle. This observation appears to demand for its interpretation the existence of two sorts of meson, the source of the observed kinetic energy of the secondary-residing in the mass difference between the two. In view of the importance of this conclusion, we have tried to consider all reasonably imaginable processes to explain the observations without introducing a new elementary particle; processes, that is, in which the energy is derived from the material of the photographic emulsion instead of from the meson. Reasons are given below for the confident rejection of all such processes.
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
FRANK, F. Hypothetical Alternative Energy Sources for the ‘Second Meson’ Events. Nature 160, 525–527 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160525a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160525a0
This article is cited by
-
Roles of resonant muonic molecule in new kinetics model and muon catalyzed fusion in compressed gas
Scientific Reports (2022)
-
A Personal Adventure in Muon-Catalyzed Fusion
Physics in Perspective (2010)
-
Sir Frederick Charles Frank (1911-98)
Nature (1998)