Word: proton
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...anti-proton-atomic twin of the proton but with a negative rather than a positive charge-was once only a well-reasoned theory. Nuclear physicists knew the particle must exist, but not until last year did they lay hands on one, and then they had to create it themselves (TIME...
...positive electrons exist, why not negative protons? Scientists searched for them for years in cosmic rays, but found only a few doubtful cases. They hoped to create them in the laboratory, but no existing cyclotron had enough power. It took the Berkeley Bevatron to create an antiproton out of energy. Like the positron, it, too, appears only paired with an ordinary proton, and destroys itself as soon as it collides with a proton...
...theory of neutrinos predicts that when one hits a proton (an infrequent event), a positron (positive electron) is emitted, and the proton turns into a neutron. Both new particles are unstable. The positron hits an electron, and both are "annihilated," turning into gamma rays. The neutron is absorbed by almost any kind of matter, and if a little cadmium is around, the neutrons captured by it give another burst of energy...
...three times an hour when the reactor was in operation, the detecting instruments registered "an event"-two flashes of light of exactly correct intensity and timing. This meant that a single neutrino (out of many billions per second) had hit a proton (out of billions along its path) and turned it into a positron and a neutron. After watching this happen for a total of 1,371 hours and taking elaborate precautions to eliminate false signals, Reines and Cowan announced that they had really detected neutrinos. AEC Commissioner Willard F. Libby congratulated them on their "magnificent accomplishment." Now nuclear physics...
...Cambridge Electron Accelerator will not be as powerful as the proton synchrotron (25 billion to 30 billion electron volts) that is being built at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, but the electrons that emerge from it will be the fastest particles created by man. Since electrons are much lighter than protons (the mass of one proton equals 1,837 electrons), they must speed much faster than protons to pack the same punch...