Strangeness Minus Three (BBC: Horizon - 1964)

Horizon explores the discovery of the Omega-minus particle. After two years and thousands of photographs, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory confirmed the existence of a new particle which had a unique characteristic: "strangeness minus three."

This video is a great display of the excitement involved in scientific discovery as well as the philosophical and physical implications of natural symmetry in particle physics. Feynman in particular discusses this near the end of the segment.

This documentary contains interviews with Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Yuval Ne'eman, and Nicholas Samios.

Category:

Science & Technology

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• feynman
• caltech
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• murray
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• nicholas
• samios
• particle
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• baryon
• omega-minus
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• history
• physicist
• interview
• horizon
• bbc
• 1964
• strangeness
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• brookhaven

[gbiota1]

I wonder if Feynman knew that he was going to be amongst the first great scientists who would be immortalized and studied as long as there were scientists to do the studying. No one knows the voice of Newton, but perhaps 10 thousand years from now, people may know the voice of Feynman. I believe his legacy is the only accolade he would ever accept.

[oilthatgate]

You mean the BBC once had programs for adults?

[lazyfreedom98]

4:16

[AliceDorothyUnterweg]

Strangeness - 3  thats Numberwang!

[Feyd01]

This is one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen, for so many reasons. I'm equally fascinated seeing how Horizon used to be compared to how it is today.

[KraussHelmut]

Thanks for uploading!

[qed100]

The loud buzzing is because at some earlier generation the print's sprocket holes in that region got stretched, which allowed the film to slip sideways a bit in the gate where the sound was read as it was being reproduced in an optical printer. A good sound editing program might be able to filter the buzzing, but I think it would probably leave the voice track rather muddy.

[qed100]

The tinniness of the sound can't be fixed on this end. The original master film print had the sound recorded as an optical track along its edge. The print from which this file was made is evidently several generations removed from the master, meaning that it's a copy of a copy of a copy, and so on. That's why the picture is so grainy. The optical soundtrack also got grainier, losing the subtlety of the original. Now it only has a very narrow bandwidth of frequencies still intact.