. . . sans nuclear weapons development
1960
- Building on the pioneering work on masers by Schawlow and Townes in the late 1950s, Theodore H. Maiman demonstrates first working laser, using a pink ruby cylinder, at Hughes Research Lab.
- Brookhaven National Lab (Long Island) builds its Alternating Gradient Synchrotron
- Ali Javan and colleagues use a laser light beam for the first time in history to place a telephone call (Bell Labs, December)
- Luis Alvarez announces his discovery in bubble chambers of very short-lived particles termed “resonances.”
- Narindar Singh Kapany coins the phrase “fiber optics” in Scientific American.
1961
- Element 103, “Lawrencium” isolated (Berkeley).
- Spain joins CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research); Yugoslavia leaves.
- Murray Gell-Mann proposes the theory of the Eightfold Way, a classification system for hadrons setting the table for the Quark Model.
- Circular detector developed for brain-imaging studies developed by James Robertson at Brookhaven; a precursor to Positron Emission Tomography Machines (PET scans).
- Physicist and cosmologist Robert Dicke claims that certain forces in physics, such as gravityand electromagnetism, must be perfectly “fine-tuned” for life to exist anywhere in the universe. Related to Brandon Carter’s idea of the “anthropic principle” introduced in 1974.
- NASA and IBM physicist Rolf Landauer first formulates Landauer’s principle having to do with logically-reversible computation, entropy, and heat – key to quantum computing and information.
1962
- The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), now the National Accelerator Laboratory founded on Sand Hill Road.
- Princeton & Stanford complete the Colliding Beam Experiment (CBX) to test Gerard K. O’Neill’s invention of the late 1950s of a circular particle storage ring as a key part of a particle accelerator for further controlled collisions of particles by particle beams. CBX stores its first beam on March 28.
- The muon neutrino, a type of lepton, discovered at Brookhaven Laboratory’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) by Jack Steinberger, Melvin Schwartz, and Leon Lederman for which they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics; demonstrates that more than one kind of neutrino exists in the elementary subatomic world.
- The University of Chicago publishes the Collected Papers of Enrico Fermi, 1921-1938.
1963
- David H. Frisch & J.H. Smith prove radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion as predicted by relativity.
- The physicist and historian Derek de Solla Price develops the idea of unequal production of literature among authors in a given subject area. What becomes “Price’s Law” states that half of all papers/books on a topic are produced by the square root of the number of authors. Price, a physicist, attempted to apply this idea to science.
1964
- Murray Gell-Mann coins the word “quark” which GeorgeZweig proposed independently and called “aces.” Quark inspired by James Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake.
- Existence of charm quark is speculated by James Bjorken and Sheldon Glashow.
- Peter Higgs proposes the Higgs boson mechanism.
- Carbon dioxide and argon lasers invented at separate locations.
- CP violation of CP symmetry discovered in the kaon system within particle physics.
- A collaboration of Syracuse, Rochester and Brookhaven discovers the omega-minus particle made of three strange quarks.
- Northern Ireland physicist, John Stewart Bell, pens eponymous theorem; establishes an area of study called quantum entanglement, particularly concerned with mechanics over long distances.
1965
- First chemical lasers developed.
- Burton Richter & Gerard K. O’Neill perform first colliding beam experiment at much higher energies than thought possible (due to storage rings – 1962).
1966
- Sir Charles Kao and George Hockham demonstrate high-purity (silica) glass fibers can replace copper/electrical wires in communications and data transfers.
- Element 102 isolated, “Nobelium” (Soviet Union)
1967
- Steven Weinberg introduces the electroweak interaction/unification theory that unifies electromagnetic and weak interactions (2 of the 4 fundamental forces of nature) into one consistent framework.
- Morikazu Toda introduces his “Toda Lattice” as a simple model for a one-dimensional crystal in solid state physics.
- Morikazu Toda introduces his “Toda Lattice” as a simple model for a one-dimensional crystal in solid state physics.
- John A. Wheeler coins the dramatic phrase “black hole” to describe the remnant of the collapse of a massive star [science journalist Ann Ewing may have first used the term]
- Roger Penrose proposes Twister Theory as a general platform for physics.
- Alvin Weinberg tests a Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR).
- Astrophysicist W.A. Fowler (1911-1995) argues the sun will exhaust its hydrogen fuel after 10-12 billion years; will then explode and transform to a red giant star so large that it will envelope Jupiter.
1968
- George Charpak develops, while at CERN, the multiwire proportional chamber that detects and gives positional information on charged particles and photons.
- Sheldon Glashow, Addus Salam, and Steven Weinberg unify the electromagnetic force and the weak interaction, showing them to be two aspects of a single force, now termed the “electro-weak force.”
- Brookhaven researchers Gordon Danby and James Powell patent Maglev, the principle of superfast magnetically levitated transportation.
1969
- Yoichiro Nambu (University of Chicago) and Leonard Susskind (Yeshiva U.) make first presentations of string theory.
- Roger Penrose posits in his “weak cosmic censorship hypothesis” that there are no naked (hidden) singularities in the universe other than the Big Bang.
- Spain leaves CERN.
- George Smith and Willard Boyle invent the charge-coupled device (CCD) at AT&T Bell Labs shortly after Philips Research Labs developed the so-called bucket-brigade device. Together they revolutionize the movements of electrical charges within a device, and have wide applications in astronomy, photography, medical imaging, and sensors.
- Element 104 isolated, “Rutherfordium” (Berkeley and Soviet Union).
1970
- Element 105 isolated, “Dubnium” (Berkeley and Soviet Union).
- Researchers measure very rapid reaction rates using a newly-developed laser temperature-jump technique (Brookhaven).
1971
- Roger Penrose proposes spin network.
1972
- Using a HeNe laser interferometer method, the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colorado determined the speed of light in a vacuum as 299,792,458 meters/sec (186,282.397 miles/sec) – 100 times more certain than the previously-accepted measure.
- Los Alamos National Laboratory installs its Linear [proton] Accelerator, still among world’s most powerful.
- Atomic Time replaces Earth Time as the world’s official time standard.
- In the area of heliophysics, a powerful series of solar storms causes extreme solar flaring and widespread geomagnetic disturbances (August 2-11); knocks out AT&T long-distance communications prompting a redesign of its land and transatlantic cables; causes detonation of naval mines near Haiphong, North Vietnam; produces a coronal cloud with the fastest transit time to earth ever recorded.
- Richard P. Feynman of Cal Tech gives seven popular lectures at Cornell on physics starting with “The Law of Gravitation – An Example of Physical Law” (March 2 – April 13).
1973
- The Linac Isotope Producer at the Brookhaven National Lab starts generating radioisotopes with industrial and biomedical applications.
- CERN starts construction of Linac 2 to replace Linac 1 as its main source of proton beams (completed 1978).
1974
- The first particle found to contain a so-called charm quark, the “J/psi” discovered by teams at the Brookhaven National Lab led by Samuel Ting; and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center led by Burton Richter.
- Element 106 isolated, “Seaborgium” (Berkeley)
- Stephen Hawking calculates that black holes emit a form of energy now known as “Hawking Radiation” (Answers Bekenstein, 1972).
- Theoretical physicist, Brandon Carter, coins the term “anthropic principle,” a philosophical idea that states that we observe a universe the way it is because it allows us to live and develop as humans. Related to the idea of “a fine-tuned universe” introduced by Robert Dicke in 1961 and others.
1975
- Abraham Pais and Sam Treiman coin the term “Standard Model” concerning the dynamics of elementary particles and quantum fields in physics.
- Physicists at the Brookhaven National Lab discover the charmed baryon.
- The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center discovers the third type of lepton, the tau.