Word: backed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...subatomic particles dubbed hadrons, a family that includes the familiar protons, pions and K mesons. Even so, hadrons are not the ultimate form of matter. They seem to be composed of still more basic particles called quarks. But how do quarks cling together? Answer: by tossing gluons back and forth among themselves...
...succeed by other means where Einstein failed. That could eventually mean a union of all four of nature's basic forces -gravitation, electromagnetism and the nuclear strong and weak forces. Predicted Israeli Theorist Haim Harari of the Weizmann Institute of Science: "Five years from now when we look back, we will all agree that the gluon was discovered in the summer...
...NASA's Ames Research Center, near San Francisco, scientists fretted in their seats. But as the pictures flashed onto the screen, the tension eased. After a journey of 6½ years, the small unmanned Pioneer 11 spacecraft was fast approaching Saturn, whose image was being sent back with more clarity than could be obtained by any earth-bound telescope. One especially intriguing view, taken by the robot from a distance of 3.2 million km (2 million miles), showed both the giant ringed planet, a huge gaseous sphere 815 times larger than earth, and its major moon, Titan, where scientists...
...Michael Egan, a roofer in Pomona, Calif., fell off a ladder and seriously injured his back. Though he could walk, he was no longer able to work. But Egan thought he was protected: he had taken out an insurance policy that guaranteed him $200 a month for life in the event of a totally disabling injury. He did indeed start getting checks from his insurer, Mutual of Omaha, but after a while a Mutual claims adjuster began harassing him as a fraud and malingerer. In 1971 the company decided that Egan, who had a history of back trouble...
Egan fought back by hiring William Shernoff, a Claremont, Calif., lawyer whose specialty is suing insurance companies for dealing in "bad faith" with their customers. In 1974 Shernoff not only persuaded a jury to award Egan $123,600 in damages for lost benefits and emotional distress, but he also won a whopping $5 million in punitive damages. That was a blow to Mutual's image as well as to its pocketbook: under California law, punitive damages are awarded to punish and deter "oppression, fraud or malice...