Word: anti
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Teller argued beyond that that the U.S.'s massive retaliation strategy is getting "more and more unrealistic." Hence the U.S. needs new, small, clean nuclear weapons for limited wars. It needs them even more for defensive anti-missile missiles. All these weapons have to be tested to be proved. And stopping the tests, whether inspected or not, would be "an extremely dangerous thing . . . We can stay ahead only by running ahead...
...strange, other-worldly world of antimatter is taking shape in the minds of men. Last week Dr. Emilio Segrè of the University of California showed the first bubble-chamber picture of an anti-neutron-or rather, a place where an antineutron could be proved to have been...
...therefore they left no bubble trails. The neutron shot out of the picture undetected, but the antineutron hit a carbon atom in the propane and committed double suicide with one of its protons or neutrons. The atom disintegrated, leaving a star of bubble trails made by pi mesons. Anti-neutrons have been detected electronically, but this was the first time that one of them has shown up in a bubble picture where its behavior could be studied in some detail...
...study of antimatter, says Segrè, is a new branch of physics whose interests reach from atomic nuclei to the universe. Scientists can now create all the antiparticles they need to build up atoms of antimatter. They have anti-neutrons, antiprotons and antielectrons (positrons). Theoretically, it should be possible to put together antiatoms with negative (not positive) nuclei at their centers and positive (not negative) electrons revolving around them. Dr. Segrè says that this stunt is difficult and probably will not be accomplished for some time...
...Anti-Gravity. Another long-range problem is to find out whether antiparticles have antigravity. Some theorists think that they do. repelling ordinary matter instead of attracting it in the normal way. Physicist Segrè thinks this unlikely, but he says that the question of anti-gravity cannot be answered conclusively without an actual experiment. One way would be to isolate anti-neutrons and observe whether they rise in the earth's gravitational field instead of falling as neutrons do. This experiment looks difficult, and Dr. Segrè fears that it may not be accomplished for another generation...