Talk:George Zweig

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Stub

It says he's a particle physicist, he's categorized as an American physicist...why is it wrong to make it a physicist stub? --Etacar11 01:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I add the stub tags for both physicist and biologist, would that be agreeable? --Etacar11 01:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

4 aces (Zweig) or 3 quarks (Gell-Mann)

The article implies Zweig thought there were 4 quarks. Wasn't Zweig incorrect? Isn't this why Gell-Mann got the Nobel and Zweig didn't? --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. Today, we know of 6 "flavors" of quarks. In 1964, at least three were needed for the model to work in accounting for the known hadrons at that time, but Zweig, unlike Gell-Mann, postulated a fourth one, subsequently identifiable with the charmed quark, discovered in the 1970s. The systematics of the respective models introduced by Gell-Mann and Zweig, nevertheless, were sound, and workable with either 3 or 4 quarks. Gell-Mann was never rewarded with his Nobel prize for introducing quarks, a fact not mentioned in the citation of that prize ("for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions"), but, inevitably, featured in the social and publicity introductions associated with the prize. In fact, that prize recognized what is now known as "flavor SU(3)", now understood to be underlain by 3 quark flavors, and nothing else (i.e., it has no conceptual basis beyond them).
But, if anything, Zweig's bold extension to more quarks was conceptually salutary, since it clearly contrasted the number of quark flavors to the "triality" of baryon wavefunctions (and the underlying "color SU(3)") and afforded a less confusing path to the final correct picture.
In fact, Zweig quipped in his (2010) "Memories" reference cited that, had he known of the tau lepton (and thus of the six flavors of quarks favored in this picture and known to date) he would have instead called them "dice"! Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 01:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List

If a list of prizes, such as the Nobel, never awarded to Zweig, is included in the article, the self-same article will get very long. Zweig's physics should be mentioned, not silly prizes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.34.152 (talk) 13:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Gribbin's ipse dixit is quoted, but he is not very reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.34.152 (talk) 13:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Note that 86.178.34.152 uses endless I.P.s.[reply]

I should agree that the discussion of the missing Nobel prize is not out of place here. The point is that conceiving quarks is one of the major breakthroughs in particle physics, and failure to recognize it with a Nobel prize is quite a scandal in the minds of a sizeable fraction of the physics community. Whether the explanation provided were optimal or adequate, or not, the fact of the missing Nobel must be addressed. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 01:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- Conclusion: Noble prizes have become a joke. Personally I do not take them seriously any more. It is like a Dancing with the stars of the academics. Forget the Nobles, they are ignoble. I think Lev Okun should have got one too if the system had been rational. And I agree to keep the material being discussed here. I am not really dead (talk) 10:26, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Add Reference to EP Interview

I am wondering if in the Reference List one should add a link to George Zweig's interview: https://ep-news.web.cern.ch/content/interview-george-zweig I couldn't fint how to do it.