The cosmic ray conference at Bagn`eres de Bigorre in July, 1953 organized by Patrick Blackett and Louis Leprince-Ringuet was a seminal one. It marked the beginning of sub atomic physics and its shift from cosmic ray research to research at the new high energy accelerators. The knowledge of the heavy unstable particles found in the cosmic rays was essentially correct in fact and interpretation and defined the experiments that needed to be carried out with the new accelerators. A large fraction of the physicists who had been using cosmic rays for their research moved to the accelerators. This conference can be placed in importance in the same category as two other famous conferences, the Solvay congress of 1927 and the Shelter Island Conference of 1948.
In January 2010 the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN began to produce proton-proton collisions at a center of mass energy of 7 TeV. This machine is the most complex and most costly of a long series of accelerators. Results of these accelerators have led to a detailed understanding of how the subatomic world works. However fundamental questions remain and it is hoped that the LHC when it achieves its full energy (14 Tev) and intensity will answer some of these fundamental questions. The accelerators have been the mainstay of subatomic physics (or high energy physics or elementary particle physics) since 1953 when the 3 GeV Brookhaven Cosmotron began artificially producing the heavy unstable particles found in the cosmic rays. In July, 1953, a conference was held in the French Pyrenees town of Bagnères de Bigorre which was devoted entirely to the production and decay properties of the cosmic ray discoveries. With perhaps one exception, concerning the production of Λ hyperons, all the conclusions concerning the unstable particles were correct. The cosmic ray results defined the early experiments to be carried out at the accelerators. The properties of the production and decay of these particles were sufficiently known so that Abraham Pais 1 and Murray Gell-Mann 2 and Kazuhico Nishijima 3 could predict their production in pairs and the strangeness scheme which defined permitted and forbidden modes of production and decay. This conference marked the boundary in time when the field of subatomic physics passed from cosmic ray research to the accelerators. This shift was explicitly recognized at Bagnères de Bigorre. This article tells the story of this remarkable conference.
In early March 1952 Louis Leprince-Ringuet received a pleading letter from Patrick Blackett. In 1950 Blackett had been chosen president of the Cosmic Ray Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and Leprince-Ringuet the secretary. Blackett writes: 4 I wonder if you have been able to find out anything about any plans that may have been made? Who has the minute book? Surely we should be discussing future plans? I do not even know the members of the commission! In 1952 the members of the commission in addition to Blackett (United Kingdom) and Leprince-Ringuet (France) were Carl. D. Anderson (United States), Gilberto. Bernardini (Italy), Homi J. Bhabba (India), and Manuel Sandoval Vallarta (Mexico). The Commission had previously organized conferences at Cracow(1947), Como(1949), and Bombay (1950). There are no known published proceedings for these conferences. At Bombay the Commission decided that the next conference should be held in 1953 and Blackett expressed alarm that nothing had been done! In the following months Blackett and Leprince-Ringuet began the organization for the 1953 conference. It was decided to hold the conference in July 1953 at Bagnères de Bigorre, a town close to the high altitude French Observatory at Pic du Midi, located in the Pyrenees. The Pic du Midi Observatory was managed by the University of Toulouse and directed by Professor Jean Rosch. The University of Toulouse became co-sponsor of the conference with IUPAP.
On May 19, 1952 a letter was sent from Blackett and Leprince-Ringuet 5 to the above mentioned commissioners outlining the general details of the conference and the subjects to be covered. The important passage in the letter is quoted below:
We feel that the whole field of cosmic rays is now too wide to be dealt with in a single conference, and it would be therefore better to limit the subject to certain lines of special contemporary interest. The general subject would be ‘Interactions at Ultra Relativistic Energies’ including the creation of V, K, τ , and ξ particles, cosmic ray phenomena underground, the primary spectrum, and any recent results related to the general definition given above. You will notice that we have excluded in the main the geophysical aspects of cosmic rays, since we feel that these are of sufficient importance to justify being made the subject of another conference, perhaps in 1955, along with a discussion of the theories of cosmic rays.
Leprince-Ringuet always wrote in French regardless of the nationality of the recipient, the sole exception being the joint letter drafted by Blackett to the commissioners. All letters to Blackett were in French. All from Blackett were in English.
The first reply was from Bhabba on May 26 who stated that he preferred an earlier date to better conform with the academic schedules in India. 6 On May 20 a letter from Blackett to Leprince-Ringuet 7 reported that a letter from Pierre Fleury, Secretary General of IUPAP, said that very few funds would be available and suggested that the conference be delayed until 1954. Blackett took exception to this, writing:
I hardly think we should wait until then but should try to get on with less money. I don’t see any reason really why we should not have a conference because we canno
This content is AI-processed based on open access ArXiv data.
