The G-Stack collaboration was a unique network of European laboratories interested in cosmic rays as a source of particles. The network was established in the mid-1950s in order to carry out a balloon flight aimed at using nuclear emulsions to investigate the nature of K mesons. The experiment was significant for the physics of the period, not only because of the scientific results it achieved, but also because it represented an experiment of transition from one epoch to another, from "small science" to "big science," from cosmic rays to accelerators. Launched from northern Italy in 1954, it was also the first strong response to the idea of establishing an international collaboration among European countries in the field of particle physics, with more than thirty authors signing the papers under the collective name of "G-Stack collaboration." An excellent example of knowledge circulation in a European framework, the G-Stack collaboration left a strong heritage for the biggest scientific European institutions and for the reconstruction of Italian physics after the Second World War.
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February 2009
Research Article|
February 01 2009
The G-Stack Collaboration (1954): An Experiment of Transition
Cristina Olivotto
Cristina Olivotto
Istituto di Fisica Generale Applicata, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Brera 28, 20121, Milan, Italy; cristina.olivotto@gmail.com. Currently at the European Space Agency, HE Space Operations, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
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Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2009) 39 (1): 63–103.
Citation
Cristina Olivotto; The G-Stack Collaboration (1954): An Experiment of Transition. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 1 February 2009; 39 (1): 63–103. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2009.39.1.63
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