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Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 070001 (2008) [5 pages]

Essay: The Tau Lepton and Thirty Years of Changes in Elementary Particle Physics Research

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Received 13 February 2008; published 22 February 2008

Starting with the 1975 discovery of the tau lepton, I look back on the last three decades of change in the substance and style of experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics. I recount the major accomplishments of those decades and predict a bright future for particle physics in the next two decades. Turning to three problems, I lament the change in theoretical style and taste, I discuss the growth in the complexity, size, and cost of particle physics experiments, and I conclude with a pessimistic comment on the size of particle physics collaborations.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.070001
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.070001
PACS:
01.30.−y

*Martin Perl is a professor emeritus at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In 1948, he earned a BS in chemical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He then switched to physics and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1955. That year he joined the physics department at the University of Michigan. Since 1963 he has been a professor at SLAC. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 for the discovery of the tau lepton. In addition to his research in experimental particle physics, he has worked in small liquid drop technology and applications and on the interaction of science with government and society.

martin@slac.stanford.edu

 
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