Science: The Potent Particle

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Like fishermen trolling in strange water, atomic physicists send instruments groping through the earth's upper atmosphere to trap whatever happens to come by. Last week scientists at the University of Minnesota reported that they had caught a whopper: a helium nucleus moving a shade slower than the speed of light with a force at least 150,000 times as powerful as the greatest energy produced by man—the 6 billion electron volts whirled out by the University of California's bevatron.

The helium nucleus, most powerful particle ever trapped, crashed into a 200-lb. stack of 300 silver bromide photographic plates suspended beneath a balloon that drifted last fall for eight hours at 116,000 ft. over Minnesota. The particle touched off a shower of electrons that streaked the plates with an expanding forest of lines. One puzzling fact: the intruder bumped into two silver or bromine nuclei, creating six mesons in the first collision and 64 in the second. Theoretically, the first collision should have produced more—not fewer—mesons than the second. Hunting for an explanation, Minnesota scientists are still puzzling over their plates, frankly admit that they do not yet know the full significance of their big catch. "At this high energy," says Physics Professor Edward P. Ney, "I'd be surprised if something new didn't happen."