Schwere Elektronen und Theorien der Kernvorgänge. Offprint from: Die Naturwissenschaften, Band 26, 1938. THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF "FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS'. INSCRIBED BY WENTZEL

WENTZEL, Gregor

Published by Publication Date: 1938

First edition, very rare offprint, of the first appearance of Feynman diagrams, exactly a decade before Feynman himself 'introduced' them (almost certainly without knowing about Wentzel's paper) at the Pocono Conference. "In a 1938 review [the offered paper] of his earlier papers on neutron decay according to the theory of Yukawa, Wentzel used several diagrams that are precursors of Feynman diagrams. In particular, his Fig. 7 shows the neutron decay N -> Pev via an intermediate boson [Pi] (called a Bose-Proton by Wentzel, who used n rather than v for a neutrino)" (McDonald, Feynman Diagrams by Wentzel (1938), Princeton University, October 6, 2020). Klausen states that "Although, Feynman graphs have structural similarities to diagrams of Wentzel their genuine connection to perturbation theory was fundamentally new" (Hypergeometric Feynman integrals, PhD thesis, 2023). However, Ehburger notes that "early calculations in Fermi and meson field theory rested as well on a perturbative treatment. The concepts of intermediate states and virtual transitions also took centre stage here. Nevertheless, we also find strong visual aspects in the work of Gregor Wentzel, as represented in [Fig. 7]. Although one might argue that those figures were taken from a rather popular account of the theory, it is to note that such representation can also be found in his influential textbook Einführung in die Quantentheorie der Wellenfelder (1943)" (Ehburger, I'm not there. Or: was the virtual particle ever born. In: Biographies in the History of Physics (Forstner & Walker, eds.), 2020, p. 270). Large 8vo, pp. 273-279. Self-wrappers (a bit creased, folded once horizontally for posting). INSCRIBED by Wenzel 'Herr Prof. Coster, mit besten Grussen' in pencil on first page, i.e., Dirk Coster (1889-1950), Dutch physicist, co-discoverer of the element Hafnium and co-author with Niels Bohr of an important work on X-ray spectroscopy and the periodic system of the elements. Seller Inventory # ABE-1685367243728

Bibliographic Details

Title: Schwere Elektronen und Theorien der ...
Publication Date: 1938
Binding: No Binding
Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition