Science: Fundamental Mysteries

The more the physicists learn, the less they are sure of. Last week a glittering tribe of top-rank physicists met at Princeton as part of the University's bicentennial celebration. Conference high points: addresses by Nobel Prizewinners Paul A. M. Dirac, of Britain, and Denmark's Niels Bohr, both of whom stressed the scientist's extraordinary difficulty in describing the simplest things.

Dr. Dirac is the genius who sensed the existence of the positron (positive electron) by figuring how a "hole" would behave if one should appear in a field of (negative) electrons. The hole, he decided, would act like a positive electron. Though no...

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