On “Historical and Scientific Phenomena” in the History of the Discovery of Quarks

Abstract

Based on the material of the discovery of quarks, considered in the context of the history of the creation of the standard model in elementary particle physics of the 1950s–1970s, the features of the corresponding historical processes, which are called “historical and scientific phenomena”, are investigated. These phenomena are quasi-empirical generalizations that are fixed through “historical (or historical-scientific) observation”. As a result, it turned out to be possible to identify the following related “historical and scientific phenomena”: a “simultaneous and independent” discovery, the presence of one leader (in this case, M. Gell-Mann), missed opportunities, the growth of a minority research program, hidden turning points, the closely related phenomenon of “sleeping beauty”, the “mistakebility” nature of development of scientific knowledge”, “the interweaving of physics and metaphysics”. The question of the universality of these phenomena is raised and it is argued that the introduction of theorism into the history of science is possible only if they are taken into account. In addition, understood as features of the evolution of the modern theory of elementary particles and the fundamental interactions between them, they can be considered as lessons of history that may be useful in its further development of this theory.