Anecdote:
1, majorana is a genius in calculation: as long as he is around, no one can calculate with a slide rule and a pen. As long as you need to ask him, please tell me the logarithm of 1538, or what is the square root of 243 multiplied by the cube root of 578 ... Fermi and he once had a calculation ability PK, Fermi used a pen and paper ruler, and majorana only used his brain, and the result of the game was a draw ... Fermi's calculation ability was: when Oppenheimer exploded the atomic bomb, he stood far away with a piece of paper in his hand. The shock wave of the atomic bomb is coming. He threw away the paper, and then calculated the energy released according to the height, speed and distance of the paper being swept away. When the shock wave disappeared, he came out, which was comparable to the result of precision instrument test. ...
Fermi once calculated the neutron lifetime, and then began to calculate it on the blackboard, and then majorana thought and thought, and then Fermi said I got the result, and then majorana said, fifteen minutes. . Fermi was depressed at that time, threw away the chalk and went out.
2. Conversation between Fermi and Pony.
Majorana: Every 500 years, a scientist like Archimedes or Newton appears, and every 100 years, a scientist like Einstein and Bohr appears.
Fermi: Then where will I be?
Be reasonable, Fermi. I'm not talking about you and me. We are just talking about Einstein and Bohr.
Majorana: the lone wolf in physics.
Reading 20 10 No.9 Author: Tang Shuang
Having dealt with theoretical physics for more than ten years, I have never paid attention to the name Ettore Majorana (1906-1938). I didn't know that there was such an outstanding geek in the field of physics in the 1930s until I read the recently published Brilliant Darkness by Maggio. Although his life was only 32 years, and the time he really spent studying physics was only about five or six years, his talent and keen insight, especially his forward thinking on many physical problems at that time, can only be described as "unparalleled".
At the age of twenty-one, majorana joined the research team led by Enrico Fermi (1938, the inventor of the first nuclear reactor) at the Institute of Physics of the University of Rome. This group is very famous in the field of physics, and it brought together a group of the best young Italian physicists at that time. It paid equal attention to theory and experiment, and its work efficiency was extremely high. Everyone works around Fermi, and only majorana is a lone wolf. However, his super analytical and computational ability and genius physical intuition are priceless to the whole research group. However, one thing that has always bothered Fermi is majorana's negative attitude towards publishing research results. Many times, after an experiment is finished, my colleagues show the experimental results to majorana, and majorana can immediately analyze and calculate and give a theoretical explanation. What's terrible is that these analyses and conclusions that can be published with a little supplement and perfection are often written on the back of a cigarette case or napkin he grabbed at random, and after he made a macro discussion, he crushed these pieces of paper and threw them directly into the trash can!
Perhaps the most annoying thing for Fermi is that majorana didn't publish his theory about neutrons, and this extremely important discovery is attributed to the name of Werner Heisenberg (who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for establishing quantum mechanics). Now we all know that the nucleus is composed of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. But at that time, neutrons had not been discovered. People think that the nucleus is composed of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons, because it seems that only with the participation of electrons can protons be gathered together by the electromagnetic force of "opposites attract". For example, the nitrogen nucleus, according to the old theory, should be composed of fourteen protons and seven electrons. Another important parameter of the nucleus is the spin number, which is formed by adding and subtracting the spin number of each elementary particle that constitutes the nucleus. The spin number of protons and electrons is half, so according to the model at that time, no matter how to add or subtract, the spin number of nitrogen nuclei must be half integer (integer plus half). 1929, Franco Rasetti, a member of Fermi research team, measured the spin number of nitrogen nuclei during his visit to California Institute of Technology, but the result was "1". Majorana immediately realized that the traditional proton nuclear model must be wrong. There are no electrons in the nucleus. It should be composed of a positively charged proton and an uncharged particle with a mass similar to that of the proton and a spin of half. He called this particle "neutral proton" and was later discovered. Specific to the nitrogen nucleus, its composition should be seven protons plus seven "neutral protons". At the same time, he also realized that in order to prevent the nucleus from falling apart because of the internal proton repulsion, there must be a much stronger interaction force in the nucleus than electromagnetism, which he called "exchange force"-this is what people later called strong interaction force. His nuclear stability theory can be said to be the predecessor of modern quantum chromodynamics. But for some reason, despite Fermi's efforts, majorana refused to publish this theory. A few months later, Ivanenco of Russia admitted the existence of neutrons, and Heisenberg also published a theory very close to majorana. Fermi complained that he missed the opportunity, but he just laughed it off. When Fermi once again asked him to at least publish the existing results to prove it, he only got a faint sentence, "Heisenberg has done everything he should do now." Majorana's work style is incompatible with Fermi's, and the relationship between them is not harmonious, but Fermi still speaks highly of him and even lists him as a Newton and Galileo figure.
Recently, with the publication of Biography of Li Zhengdao, there has been a debate about who first put forward the view that parity is not conserved. In fact, perhaps majorana was the first person to think that parity might not be conserved-parity once appeared in his neutrino theory as a confusing pure mathematical problem. Of course, thinking does not mean proving.
Parity is a physical quantity that describes the inverse evolution of particles in space. Just as some of us are used to writing with our right hand and others are used to writing with our left hand, elementary particles have similar characteristics-left hand and right hand. For most particles, the left hand and the right hand are symmetrical, that is, if a particle is left-handed, then there must be a particle that is right-handed. If a left-handed particle looks in the mirror, what you see in the mirror is a right-handed particle. In the interaction of particles, if the same kind of right-handed particles are replaced by left-handed particles, the result remains unchanged, and this interaction has left-handed symmetry. Roughly speaking, this is parity conservation. Parity is not only conserved in the process of weak interaction, but generally involves neutrinos. Neutrinos are strange. They are all left-handed. In other words, if a left-handed neutrino looks in the mirror, there is nothing in the mirror, because the right-handed neutrino does not exist at all. Majorana is an expert on neutrinos, and he has probably realized the high asymmetry of neutrinos. Although the neutrino theory he constructed in the early 1930s is quite different from the generally accepted theory now, it can also explain all relevant experiments so far. If the rest mass of neutrinos is zero, the two theories will never be able to distinguish between good and bad. However, a series of experiments on neutrino oscillation at the beginning of this century basically affirmed that neutrinos have static mass, so the final judgment of these two theories may not be far away.
Besides majorana, there is another person who missed the discovery of parity non-conservation. According to Magueijo's description in Gorgeous Darkness, abdul sallam (who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his unified theory of weak electricity) was puzzled by the mathematical structure of traditional neutrino theory and majorana neutrino theory when he was a Ph.D. student in Cambridge, England. At the beginning of about 1956, before Li Zhengdao and Yang Zhenning published their paper on parity non-conservation, he once flew back to England from the United States and had nothing to do, so he began to think about neutrinos again. Suddenly, I had a flash of light, thinking that if neutrinos have the maximum left-right asymmetry, that is, only left-handed neutrinos have no right-handed neutrinos, those problems that have plagued him for many years can be solved! This actually means that one of his feet has crossed the threshold of parity non-conservation. As soon as Salam got off the plane, he quickly wrote out his ideas in detail and showed them to Pell, who had already reviewed his doctoral thesis. Unexpectedly, Pyle's answer turned out to be: "I don't believe that left-right symmetry will be destroyed in weak nuclear force at all." I won't even touch the idea. "Salam unwilling, directly contact the" father of neutrinos "Pauli (1945 Nobel Prize winner in physics). But Pauli warned that if he put forward such a stupid idea, it would be tantamount to self-destruction. Salam finally gave up his idea and closed the door he opened. This shows that in the process of scientific research, it is very important to put forward an opinion, and how to prove it is equally important, and it is particularly important to see the significance of an eccentric opinion and dare to publish it. After this lesson, Salam went a little to the other extreme-he often rushed out to publish immature conclusions. Of course, this is understandable. After all, he missed an important discovery. After all, there are very few people like Ma Jolana who treat fame and fortune like dirt.
Majorana's paper on neutrinos can be circulated around the world, and there is a short story. Around 1932, he devoted himself to constructing a "super" theory that could cover all elementary particles and their interactions. This is quite similar to Einstein's theory of great unity in his later life. From this perspective, it can also be said that majorana is the pioneer of the great unification theory. Unfortunately, his "super" theory didn't work-at least at the time. The unfinished macro was thrown into the drawer by him. His neutrino theory is only an appendix to this theory, and of course it has also entered the drawer.
1933, due to health reasons, majorana resigned from the Institute of Physics of the University of Rome and began a "closed door" life for four years. During these four years, he did not publish any papers, but completed some miscellaneous small-scale research, including geophysics, electronic engineering, mathematics and relativity. 1937, without any warning, he suddenly broke through and applied for a professorship at the University of Palermo, Italy. One of the requirements of the application is to submit a paper, so he took out an appendix on neutrinos that has been dusty for five years, giving the world a chance to see his imaginative neutrino theory. Majorana's appearance greatly exceeded the expectations of the recruitment Committee, which also made them very embarrassed. Because with majorana's position in physics, as long as he applies, of course, this position belongs to him. The trouble is that this position has been reserved for another applicant, and it also involves the promotion of several other people. Italian educational institutions finally had to set up a new position for majorana at the University of Naples, on the grounds that he was too outstanding to settle the matter.
An appendix has such a standard. How many "treasures" are there in Ma Jolana's drawer? It's a pity that we have never met. Majorana has a famous saying: "Physics goes astray, and we all go astray." We can understand this sentence as simply talking about physics, that is to say, majorana thinks that the whole research direction of physics is wrong, and he may have seen the way of truth. Some people interpret this sentence more "profoundly" and think that what he means is that physics should benefit mankind, but now it may become a tool to destroy mankind. Some people suspect that he may be the first person to discover the mystery of nuclear fission and chain reaction (the basis of atomic bombs and nuclear reactors), and infer that this is the fundamental reason why he later disappeared from the world with all his important notes. From the standpoint of majorana at that time, this was not groundless. Because Fermi's research team is recognized as the most "should" master these two discoveries (especially nuclear fission) first, but they were wrongly handed over to others.
Majorana is a mysterious figure, not to mention his incredible thinking ahead in physics, but his judgment on some small things in life is quite puzzling. For example, he has never had a girlfriend because he thinks he is too ugly. But judging from his photos, he is not handsome, but he is not ugly anyway. As for his death (strictly speaking, it should be missing), it is even more bizarre. 1On March 25th, 938, he left a short message for his family and Antonio Carelli, director of the Institute of Physics of the University of Naples, where he worked, and then boarded a mail ship bound for Palermo, the capital of Sicily. Both ordinary people and the police interpret these two letters as suicide letters. However, two things are puzzling-he got his salary for half a year and took all the important scientific research notes, which is not like a person who wants to commit suicide. Nevertheless, if things stop here, most people will still think that he committed suicide. Unexpectedly, he arrived in Palermo safely and sent a telegram and a letter to Carelli. The telegram only said "don't be nervous, the letter will come soon", and the letter clearly stated that he had given up the idea of suicide. According to the records, he did buy a ticket to Naples, and a cabin friend (three people live in one cabin) once testified that when he disembarked in Naples, Ma Jolana was still sleeping in the cabin. But Mallorana came from nothing. No one knows for sure whether he got off the ship in Naples, or even whether he got on the ship bound for Naples. This uncertain ending left room for future generations to imagine. Therefore, for decades, people have claimed to have seen Ma Jolana in different corners of the world. One version is: in the early 1960 s, he often ate in a bar in Chile and solved math problems on napkins ... These rumors can't be confirmed, and I'm afraid they are all media hype. Today, Italians have not forgotten him. He has played the leading role in many science fiction novels or movies, and even has a collection of science fiction cartoons about him. In the comics, majorana's ending is the most brilliant-being picked up by aliens!