Science: Barytron

The current spate of scientific meetings is like a late spring housecleaning which gives theorists and experimenters a chance to clear their research shelves toward the close of an academic year. At the American Physical Society’s convention in Washington last week the X-particle, newest and queerest of physics’ collection of atomic particles, which weighs much more than an electron but much less than a proton (TIME, Nov. 29). came in for a good deal of housewifely attention.

For one thing, the X-particle was given a name instead of a cryptic designation. The name is barytron, which means “heavy particle” and was suggested by Dr. Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim of Duke University. The name has already found official favor, seems likely to stick.

The barytron was discovered as a product of cosmic-ray activity in the upper atmosphere. Several investigators, however, have suggested that the powerful forces which bind the nucleus of an atom together may be caused by a sort of “bubbling” within the nucleus—a continuous creation, exchange and reabsorption of heavy particles. Last week Dr. Hans A. Bethe of Cornell, a brilliant analyst of atomic behavior, showed how barytrons could perform this nuclear binding function if they exist in all three electrical states — positively charged, negatively charged, neutral.