Question

Who in 1939 suggested the name meson for middle-weight particles?
A. Abraham Pais
B. Homi J. Bhabha
C. Hideki Yukawa
D. Anderson

Answer 1

Hint: A particle having the mass in the order of three hundred times the electron’s mass and times the mass of the proton is called the middle weight particle. A middle weight particle maintains a strong force between neutron and proton in a nucleus.

Complete Step by Step Answer:
Hideki Yukawa coined the term ‘mesons’. A scientist called David Anderson discovered a particle Meson which has mass between electron and proton and the name of the particle was then changed to Mesotron by taking advice from Millikan. Yukawa already suggested such a type of particle which has a short term force between neutron and proton due to exchange of heavy quanta. This is a perfectly hypothetical particle unless it was seen in the cosmic rays between two separate groups.

It was discovered that cosmic rays have two intermediate mass particles called muon and pion. Muon was seen as a heavy particle that was the counterpart of electron but it was not meson at all but sometimes termed as mu-meson. But pion was found as a true meson as Yukawa predicted. Meson is a type of hadron which has an integer spin.

Therefore, the correct option is (C) i.e. Hideki yukawa proposed the name meson for middle weight particles.

Note:Mesons are the hydronic subatomic particles which binds the neutrons and protons by governance of the behaviour of the quarks. Charged mesons decay to form electrons and neutrinos whereas uncharged mesons decay to form photons.