The Stern Gerlach Experiment and the Discovery (?) of the Electron Spin, Prof. Sandip Pakvasa (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

Thursday Sep 17, 2015, 3:15 PM → 5:15 PM Pacific/Honolulu

112 (Watanabe)

I will describe the story of how Stern and Gerlach tried to detect space quantization of Bohr orbits in Silver atoms and ended up discovering the spin of the electron, and how it took five years to disentangle the muddle. I will also discuss the vexing story of a possible Stern-Gerlach experiment for free electrons. I will note in passing the remarkable career of Otto Stern, sometimes called the founding father of Experimental Atomic Physics.

Slides Stern-Gerlach.pdf Stern-Gerlach.pptx