云室是气体中的液体,而泡室是液体中的气体,这两者在原理上,完全构成一个互补关系。 不过泡室的最初发明者 Glaser 否认了 是受到 盐入啤酒产生气泡启发而发明泡室的“谣言”: (http://www.lbl.gov/Publications/Currents/Archive/Jul-21-2006.html) Invention and History of the Bubble Chamber During his talk, Donald Glaser put an end to the rumor that bubbles in beer inspired him to create the bubble chamber, which allows physicists to track electrically charged particles, and which won Glaser the 1960 Nobel Prize. However, he did consider using beer at one point, Glaser said. He developed the concept for the bubble chamber while at Ann Arbor, Michigan, working with his advisor, Nobel Laureate Carl Anderson. Glaser’s device used glass bulbs filled with liquid. By submerging the bulbs first in cold oil and then in hot oil, he could superheat the liquid. In that state, the liquid is full of potential energy. A charged particle passing through would have enough energy to trigger bubbling and leave a visible trail. A fast action camera would photograph the trail the instant before the liquid began to boil over, providing an image physicists could use. However, Glaser needed a liquid with a low enough surface tension. Too high, and the liquid would not bubble even if a energized by a charged particle. His experiments with beer left nothing but a stench in the room and raised a few eyebrows, he said. Instead, he filled the tubes with diethyl ether. Later bubble chambers increased in size and used liquid hydrogen. Glaser is now a professor of physics and neurobiology, at UC Berkeley’s graduate school. He’s developing computational models of human vision. His graduate lab is a heaven for “refugees of high energy physics,” like him, he said.
既然他说,“He developed the concept for the bubble chamber while at Ann Arbor, Michigan, working with his advisor, Nobel Laureate Carl Anderson.”,而我们知道,Anderson是以首先发现正电子而闻名,所以,可以合理猜想,利用云室的逆原理来制造泡室以观察高能粒子轨迹,很可能早就是粒子物理实验学家们的想法了。当然,我们不知道他们涌现出这个想法的时候,是不是受到了互补原理的影响,但是我们的确可以从物理学直观和人类心理学方面稍加考察。