Case Studies in Experimental Physics

This book addresses the pursuit and further investigation of experimental results by analyzing classic examples from physics. The authors concentrate on the investigation of experimental results by examining case studies from the history of 20th and 21st century physics. Discussions on the discovery of parity nonconservation, the rise and fall of the Fifth Force, the search for neutrinoless double β decay, supersymmetry and the expansion of the Standard Model, and measurements of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muons are provided. Experimental results may achieve acceptance to the point that even well known principles, such as conservation of energy and quantization, lose their status as accepted. Such principles and their options are treated on an equalfooting as being pursuit worthy even though there is no plausible explanation as to why and how they might have failed.
In addition, this book:
Provides the first discussion of pursuit with an emphasis on experimental resultsQuestions why scientists continue an investigation of experiments or theoriesFeatures the pursuit and acceptance of experiments with case studies from 20th and 21st century physics