Word: atomical
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Imagine an infinitesimal particle that is as heavy as a large atom and less tangible than a shadow. For 15 years, hundreds of physicists have been chasing such an improbable phantom. Their quarry is the top quark, the sole missing member of a family of subatomic particles that form the basic building blocks of matter. Of six types of quarks that are believed to exist, five have already been discovered. "The top," says Harvard University theorist Sheldon Glashow, "is not just another quark. It's the last blessed one, and the sooner we find it, the better everyone will feel...
Theorists have already deduced that the top quark is heavier than any known particle. "A single top quark," exclaims Fermilab physicist Alvin Tollestrup, "probably weighs at least as much as a whole silver atom does." (With an atomic weight of 108, a silver atom is made up of hundreds of up and down quarks.) Exactly how much top quarks weigh is a question scientists are anxious to answer, but first they must find some to measure -- a task considerably complicated by the fact that in nature these massive but ethereal entities made only a cameo appearance, just after...
...taken for granted. Petroski argues that form follows failure rather than function, meaning that the inadequacies of existing things have inspired inventors to see if they could do better. The author's message: considering its history, the humble paper clip is as much of an industrial miracle as the atom smasher...
...civilian science and technology. But faced with an annual federal budget deficit of about $300 billion, the new President cannot support basic research in the lavish, no-strings fashion that scientists have come to expect. Giant projects such as the superconducting supercollider, the proposed $8.25 billion Texas-based atom smasher that will hunt for quarks and other exotic subatomic particles, will come under increasingly tough scrutiny...
...allowed to be apolitical. To advance in their professions they would have to join The Party and devote some time to propagandizing for it. In a democratic country a physicist can pass up any participation in politics in order to spend every possible moment pondering the structure of the atom, and may well serve society better by doing...