When learning about various ideas in mathematics and physics, I’m always fascinated by the history of these ideas and eagerly read whatever I can find on the subject. Partly this is because my understanding of ideas is often enlightened by finding out where they came from, especially what problems they were invented to solve. It’s also true that the history of these fields is a huge and remarkable story, in many ways far more intricate, subtle and surprising than any novel ever written, and can be appreciated as such. It’s quite possible that I’ve spent more time on this than is healthy, since there are good reasons for the fact that many scientists wait until late in their career to develop serious historical interests. Time spent studying history is not time spent developing new ideas.
One peculiar aspect of the present state of particle theory is that our current best fundamental physical theory, the Standard Model, is getting so old that fewer and fewer active physicists have any first-hand knowledge of its history. To a large degree, this history spans just about exactly a quarter-century, from renormalized QED in 1948 to asymptotic freedom in 1973. Before 1948 all we had were first-order calculations in QED, by 1973 the full Standard Model was in place. Physicists who finished a Ph.D in 1973 are now in their early 60s and soon will be getting to retirement age. First-hand understanding of where the Standard Model came from is now not part of the background of particle physicists in the most active stage of their careers.
One reason I started thinking about this is a recent exchange in the comment section of the last posting, sparked by my referring parenthetically to the fact that Yang and Mills had developed Yang-Mills theory (in 1954) in the context of trying to describe the strong interactions. The SU(2) gauge theory they wrote down didn’t work for this purpose, since what was needed was an SU(3) theory of quark colors, something that had to await at least the discovery of quarks. The SU(2) gauge theory of isotopic spin they were considering ultimately did find a role in the electroweak part of the Standard model, but this idea got started only after the symmetry properties of the weak interactions became clear later in the 1950s. Schwinger and his student Glashow were among the first to work on this idea, with the correct theory not appearing until 1967 after the role of the Higgs mechanism was understood.
Anonymous commenter “H-I-G-G-S” reacted to my allusion to this history as follows:
You said “Actually, Yang-Mills theory was invented to describe part of the standard model (the strong interactions)”
Not true. Go back and read the original paper.
Well, I have read the original paper, as well as a lot of secondary literature about it. The paper begins with a discussion of the symmetry properties of the strong interactions of nucleons and pions, which was the main topic of the day in 1954, due to the large number of strongly interacting states being discovered at accelerators. Nothing about the weak interactions, which was a different topic, with the symmetry properties of such interactions not understood until a few years later.
I devoted a few minutes to Googling “Yang-Mills” and “history”, and turned up quotes from David Gross and Steven Weinberg explicitly stating that the strong interactions were the motivation for Yang and Mills and posted comments with those. It seems though that “H-I-G-G-S” is not satisfied with this, recently responding:
Perhaps Yang and Mills were hoping to develop a theory of the strong interactions. Perhaps not. Where is the evidence that they were? You don’t cite any statements from their actual paper. You don’t direct me to any historical documents where they were interviewed about their thoughts. If you did I would be happy to have a look and I might be convinced that this was indeed their motivation. Instead you argue by appeal to a higher authority, in this case Gross and Weinberg. Of course when they argue about the importance of string theory you do not agree with them, but when they support a point you like they are suddenly experts who cannot be disputed. Gross was 13 years old when the Yang-Mills paper was published. Why do you think he should know what they were thinking?
I had actually cited a relevant statement from the paper, but I’m not sure what if anything could possibly satisfy “H-I-G-G-S”. Perhaps there is a published interview where Yang makes the kind of explicit, unambiguous statement about his motivations that “H-I-G-G-S” requires and maybe someone with enough interest can dig this up. Since “H-I-G-G-S” insists on anonymity, all I know is that he or she is from a major metropolitan area home to major universities, and appears to be a particle theorist who has been around for a while, although not long enough to know much history. Despite this, he/she has rather definite ideas about what this history is, coupled with a steadfast skepticism about any information which might indicate these ideas don’t correspond to historical reality.
I don’t know to what extent the case of “H-I-G-G-S” reflects the general understanding of the historical roots of the Standard Model among active theorists working on trying to extend it. Much effort on this blog has been devoted to trying to puncture the historical narrative that has solidified over the last 25 years about the supposed march forward of such speculative ideas such as extra dimensions, supersymmetry and string theory. Perhaps it would also be a good idea to worry about misconceptions concerning the history of successful parts of the subject, as well as the unwillingness of many particle theorists to give up such misconceptions.
Update: Here are some suggestions for reading about the history of the Standard Model, ordered very roughly from more popular to more technical:
For the early history of gauge theory, there is