It was the biggest week for nuclear physics since the Smyth Report came out. Scientists of the General Electric Co.' announced that their mighty betatron, which generates 100 million-volt X rays, had shattered not only atoms but also attacked the sub-atomic particles themselves. Bombarding neutrons and protons with their powerful X ray, the G.E. men had produced mesons*—particles whose mass is partway between a proton and an electron.
Mesons disintegrate in a few millionths of a second. They had been observed before only in the debris left by the impact of a cosmic ray. Now, for the first time, they could be...
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