A British universityhas bestowedan honorary doctorate of science on 98 - year - erstwhile Rosemary Fowler , 75 years after she made a discovery that helped overturn particle natural philosophy .
In 1948 , Fowler — then Rosemary Brown — was a PhD scholar at the University of Bristol , working in the science lab of succeeding Nobel laureate C.F. Powell .
Back then , the good path to glimpse at some of the subtle particles of stake was by send a highly raw colloid on a photographic home plate up to a high altitude . While Fowler reviewed a slide of one of these photographic emulsions , she point out that one corpuscle had disintegrate into three subatomic particle , called “ pi-meson . ” This defied what was then a wide accepted conception of physics known as para . To grossly oversimplify its definition from a longer explanation — like the one place out byNaturewriter Suzie Sheehyhere — parity held that physical processes like the one on the slide should have a mirror - comparable symmetry . So how could there be an uneven identification number of pions ?
Fowler was the hint author on a series of papers documenting the phenomenon . Over the next few years , the singular pattern make a puzzle until physicists accepted that subatomic particle patterns do not harbour para in Department of State of radioactive decay . The mysterious particle that Fowler had get wind was bring up thekaon . The enquiry instigated a series of new theories and equations that lead to the confirmation of theHiggs boson particlein 2012 . The Higgs boson , previously theoretic , was observed at an vigor lab in Geneva and is creditworthy for accord other speck their mass , clear it a building block of our modern sympathy of particle physics .
But Fowler did not enter in that interchange of ideas . She left the university to marry a schoolfellow in the physics department , Peter Fowler , in 1949 and focalize on raising three daughter , all of whom go on to study scientific discipline . In post - war Britain , astatementfrom the University of Bristol say it would have been especially tough to navigate life story with two parent in the men at the time .
Fowler accepted the pureness at a ceremonial at Darwin College , Cambridge , surrounded by children , grandchild , and great - grandchildren , and said she felt “ very prestigious … but I have n’t done anything since to deserve special regard . ”
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