IMPORTANCE OF PARITY STRESSED

To The Editors of The CRIMSON:

The significance of the overthrow of parity conservation does not require considerable grounding in physics or mathematics to appreciate. I disagree with Mr. Crichton's conclusions concerning the place of parity at the Cambridge High Tables. (CRIMSON Bookshelf, Thursday, Oct. 9.)

The concept of parity is quite straight forward. A right handed glove viewed in a mirror appears as a left handed glove and vice versa. The act of looking into the mirror is the essence of the idea of parity. Parity conservation implies that physical laws do not depend upon handedness; a left and right glove dropped from the top of Holyoke Center will reach the ground together. Even on the atomic level physical laws do not depend upon handedness. (In fact they must be explicitly independent of any reference to "left" or "right".)

Parity conservation is obvious on a macroscopic level and has been verified on an atomic level. Physicists tacitly assumed that parity conservation also held on the subatomic level. In 1957 an experiment was performed which showed that parity was not conserved on the subatomic level. (The electrons emerging from the radioactive decay of cobalt were spinning more in one direction than in the other.) Physicists had assumed a law to be true in a situation where they had no right to. This was the second such faulty assumption which has been corrected in the twentieth century. Until 1926 physicists assumed that Newtonian mechanics (applicable to gloves and planets) was valid on the atomic level. In 1926 quantum mechanics appeared as a more valid description of mechanics upon the atomic level. In both cases the significance is hardly abstruse. Scientists who extend their laws to situations other then where they were originally derived should do so with great care. Where possible they should seek experimental proof.

It is clear that these observations are by no means limited to the physical sciences. The introduction of Keynesian economics represents an exactly similar situation. A key aspect of Keynesian theories is that a classical economics based on truisms relevant to the individual (thrift, savings, income greater than expenses) does not automatically apply to an entire economy. One may safely assume that the significance of Keynesian economics has been discussed at the Cambridge High Table without delving into marginal propensities. Consequently, I would disagree with Mr. Crichton and argue that the significance of non-conservation of parity also could be discussed there without delving into wave functions.

In a sense the fault is with scientists who in explaining non-conservation of parity are preoccupied with its sophisticated ramifications. These are undeniably important to other scientists. This preoccupation, however, does cause difficulties in communication with non-scientists and obscures the broader significance of the overthrow of a scientific law. Such an overthrow is most significant to the non-scientist as a lesson in the psychology of science, or more broadly, in the psychology of scholarly inquiry. Joel Tenenbaum, 2G