Ten papers depicting the future
Majorana made fundamental contributions to several different areas of theoretical physics, in part as collaborator of the Fermi group in Rome, as seen in Chapter 1. However, he published only a few scientific articles, so his brilliant activity was not at all immediately recognized outside the Fermi group (with the notable exception of paper N.8, publicized by Heisenberg). The complete list of articles written by Majorana and published by him is as follows:
N.1. Gentile Jr., G. and Majorana E., 1928.
Sullo sdoppiamento dei termini Roentgen ottici a causa dell'elettrone
rotante e sulla intensità delle righe del Cesio.
Rend. Acc. Lincei, 8, 229.
N.2. Majorana, E., 1931.
Sulla formazione dello ione molecolare di He.
Nuovo Cim., 8, 22.
N.3. Majorana, E., 1931.
I presunti termini anomali dell'Elio.
Nuovo Cim., 8, 78.
N.4. Majorana, E., 1931.
Reazione pseudopolare fra atomi di Idrogeno.
Rend. Acc. Lincei, 13, 58.
N.5. Majorana, E., 1931.
Teoria dei tripletti P′ incompleti.
Nuovo Cim., 8, 107.
N.6. Majorana, E., 1932.
Atomi orientati in campo magnetico variabile.
Nuovo Cim., 9, 43.
N.7. Majorana, E., 1932.
Teoria relativistica di particelle con momento intrinseco arbitrario.
Nuovo Cim., 9, 335.
N.8a. Majorana, E., 1933.
Über die Kerntheorie.
Z. Phys., 82, 137.
N.8b. Majorana, E., 1933.
Sulla teoria dei nuclei.
Ric. Scientifica, 4 (1), 559.
N.9. Majorana E., 1937.
Teoria simmetrica dell'elettrone e del positrone.
Nuovo Cim., 14, 171.
A further paper should be added to this list, published posthumously by Majorana's friend Giovanni Gentile Jr. from an original manuscript he found among Majorana's personal papers:
N.10. Majorana, E., 1942.
Il valore delle leggi statistiche nella fisica e nelle scienze sociali.
Scientia, 36, 55.
The largest part of Majorana's work was, however, left unpublished. We are now left with his master thesis on “the quantum theory of radioactive nuclei,” 5 notebooks (“Volumetti”) [17], 18 booklets (“Quaderni”) [18], 12 folders with spare papers, and a set of the lecture notes on theoretical physics [26] prepared for a class at the University of Naples.
In the following we give an account of what was effectively published by Majorana during his short scientific life, while, in the remaining part of this book, we will focus on some key contributions reported in his personal notes but left unpublished by Majorana.