ABSTRACT
Within two years of its proposal, Fermi’s theory had received two challenges. One of these, which concerned the exact mathematical form of the β decay interaction, was regarded as an articulation of Fermi’s theory rather than as a new theory. The second, though it also involved the mathematical form of the interaction, was regarded as a different theory. The hypothesis of a Universal Fermi Interaction that would explain all weak interactions received further support. There was no generally agreed-upon theory of muon processes in the early 1950s, although the muon decay was consistent with Fermi theory and with an STP combination. The spectrum of RaE was also one of the major pieces of evidence favoring the Konopinski-Uhlenbeck modification over Fermi’s original theory. The early experiments did measure the angular correlation and they favored the Fermi theory over the K-U modification. The K-U theory included the derivative of the neutrino wavefunction rather than, as in the Fermi theory, the wavefunction itself.
