Word: meson
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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This is what was happening in the bubble chamber. Mesons were forming mesic atoms with the nuclei of heavy hydrogen (deuterium), which they prefer to ordinary hydrogen. A meson so occupied makes no bubbles, and this accounted for the gaps in the meson tracks. But when a mesic deuterium atom hits an atom of ordinary hydrogen, the nuclei fuse together, forming an atom of helium 3 and releasing 5.4 million electron-volts of energy. The meson shoots off, carrying the energy as velocity, and is none the worse for its experience. It may form another mesic atom and cause...
...symmetry, Goldhaber postulates that all matter-positive and negative-may be traced to an unstable, giant particle that he calls the "universon." At some dawn of time this particle split into a positively charged "cosmon" and a negatively charged "anti-cosmon," much like a fundamental particle, e.g., a heavy meson, disintegrating automatically into two oppositely charged particles. Energy released by the split shoved apart the cosmon and anti-cosmon at tremendous speeds...
...Matter is being created continuously in the form of hydrogen. This is Hoyle's favorite and widest-sweeping theory. He admits that it cannot be proved conclusively at present because of man's incomplete knowledge of the infinitely small (mesons, neutrinos, etc.) and the infinitely large (galaxies). He believes that the mysteries must be connected somehow, and he hopes that a breakthrough on the meson front will tell astronomers why the galaxies appear to be flying apart through space, and whether the universe is still being created...
...dedicated to science and engineering, it is only natural that its laboratories should outnumber classrooms about five to one. And out of these laboratories have come some major revolutions in knowledge. The terms that Caltech has made important -cosmic ray, Badger's rule, alpha helix, Neurospora, positron, meson and mumeson-may not be exactly household words, but they have become standard parts of science's vocabulary...
Unseen Searchlight. Columbia's cyclotron yielded its first meson beam about a year ago, when Dr. Eugene T. Booth (now working on a secret Government project) was in charge of the great machine. Since then, the meson beam has played like an unseen searchlight around the flank of the cyclotron, lighting up dark corners of atomic physics. The mass of the quick-vanishing pi meson has been measured accurately, as well as its "spin," which is something like rotation. Dr. James Rainwater, the present boss of the cyclotron, is finding out what happens when mesons hit protons, neutrons...