Julia Levy, Contributing Photographer

On Monday, the Society of Physics Students, or SPS, welcomed Helen Quinn — a renowned particle physicist — to deliver the Howard L. Schultz Sr. Price Lecture.

During the talk, Quinn spoke on her experiences as a particle physicist, the history of the Standard Model of particle physics, and her work on the axion. Quinn has been honored by national and international physics organizations with the Dirac Medal, the Klein Medal, the Sakurai Prize, the Compton medal and the Benjamin Franklin Medal. 

“SPS and the Physics Department are extremely excited to be hosting Professor Quinn,” Max Watzky ’27, the prize lecture chair of SPS, told the News. “She is nothing short of legendary. It’s not every day that you get to hear from and interact with a truly groundbreaking pioneering scientist. That’s what Helen Quinn represents to me.” 

Quinn ushered in a new era of particle physics by studying a new particle called the axion. Watzky emphasized Quinn’s work is of particular relevance to several of Yale’s laboratories, such as Wright Lab, as they continue to search for the dark matter particle and the axion. 

Quinn spoke about the November Revolution in particle physics. In November 1974, two teams  —  one at SLAC and one at Brookhaven National Laboratory — independently discovered a pair of elementary particles called quarks, later called J/Ψ. 

“It was the beginning of the establishment of the Standard Model,” said Quinn. 

The Standard Model is comprised of the building blocks of the universe, or the four fundamental forces: the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force. The discovery led scientists to believe there exists a fourth quark and upheld that the quark model is an accurate representation of the universe. 

In her talk, Quinn discussed the subsequent experiments to assess the concreteness of the Standard Model. 

For instance, multiple experiments measured for the same parameter in different energies and decay channels to find a similar value for a constant term. These agreeing results demonstrated that the Standard Model is accurate across experiments. 

“The theory is incredibly good,” Quinn said. “The amount of experimental work that it takes to test the theory takes an incredible amount of work.”

The great success of the current Standard Model has led some particle physics to wonder where the field is heading next. 

One hypothesis in the physics community is there may not be any new particles left to find, as the Standard Model does not require any new particles to support its current framework.

One of the audience members posed a concern relating to such. Quinn thought for a moment before replying, “It’s hard to know the good questions, that doesn’t mean there are none.”

Outside of the lab, Quinn has been recognized for her efforts to aid the next generation of physics education. In 2013, she developed “A Framework for K-12 Science Education,” a vision that has been adopted by states across the country.

Quinn will also be joining the Yale Physics Community on Tuesday at 5 p.m. for an informal panel with SPS, Women+ in Physics, and Queer Affiliated fRiends of physiKs at Sloane Physics Laboratory. The discussion will focus on her career as a woman in physics and give advice for students earlier in their careers.

“I am very excited to hear both about her research and how throughout her career as a woman in physics, she’s navigated being in male-dominated spaces, especially [in] an era when there was a lot less gender representation in physics,” Ana Maria Melián ’25 said, the co-president of Women+ in Physics. 

Quinn received her doctorate from Stanford in 1967.