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From: scent@sask.UUCP (Scent Project)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Martin Gardner tells how to know your left from your right
Message-ID: <241@sask.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Jun-85 12:52:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: sask.241
Posted: Fri Jun 14 12:52:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 08:40:29 EDT
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> > 
> > An interesting, related bit of trivia is the fact that "left" and
> > "right" are concepts which can only be communicated among two
> > parties if both parties can "see" each other.
> > For those interested, Martin Gardner, of "mathematical recreations"
> > fame (I THINK it was Martin Gardner) wrote a very interesting book
> > about the handedness of the universe.  You'll have to find the
> > title yourself.
> > 
> > 					Ken McDonald
> 
> The book is "The Ambidextrous Universe".  I don't own the book myself,
> but I do have an excerpt of it in a science encyclopedia called "The
> Realm of Science".  The article describes the experiment that led to the
> fall of parity, done by Lee and Yang in 1956.  This experiment showed that
> electrons are more likely to emerge from the south end of a cobalt-60
> nucleus than from the north.  The article describes how this effect can
> be used to define "right" and "left" to a remote listener.  I will
> paraphrase:
> 

	       (Description omitted by KM)

As Gardner's book points out, this experiment can be used to tell left
from right only if working with matter, not antimatter.  However, a
previous posting on this subject noted a different way to define
handedness, using the neutral K meson, so I guess Gardner's book is
dated, after all.

			Ken "Excuse the Typos" McDonald