1 - Introduction

Summary

The Early Days of Dual Models

In 1900, in the course of trying to fit to experimental data, Planck wrote down his celebrated formula for black body radiation. It does not usually happen in physics that an experimental curve is directly related to the fundamentals of a theory; normally they are related by a more or less intricate chain of calculations. But black body radiation was a lucky exception to this rule. In fitting to experimental curves, Planck wrote down a formula that directly led, as we all know, to the concept of the quantum.

In the 1960s, one of the mysteries in strong interaction physics was the enormous proliferation of strongly interacting particles or hadrons. Hadronic resonances seemed to exist with rather high spin, the mass squared of the lightest particle of spin J being roughly m² = J/α^′, where α^′ ˜ l(GeV)⁻² is a constant that became known as the Regge slope. Such behavior was tested up to about J = 11/2, and it seemed conceivable that it might continue indefinitely. One reason that the proliferation of strongly interacting particles was surprising was that the behavior of the weak and electromagnetic interactions was quite different; there are, comparatively speaking, just a few low mass particles known that do not have strong interactions.

The resonances were so numerous that it was not plausible that they were all fundamental.