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Wednesday, April 27, 1994
The Battalion
Page 3
Scientists find evidence of last quark
The Associated Press
’ April?;
BATAVIA, Ill. — A team of 440
ientists has successfully conclud-
an intensive, 1 7-year search for
|ie of the most elusive and myste-
]ous objects in the universe — the
p quark.
On Tuesday, researchers at the
:rmi National Accelerator Labora
tory announced they had found
the first evidence of its existence.
If confirmed, it would support
|ur basic understanding of the na-
re of time, matter and the uni-
se.
"If it had not been discovered ...
I think the whole picture of the
universe would have collapsed,”
said physicist Michael Riordan at
the Stanford Linear Accelerator
!enter in California.
The finding also would mark
the end of a worldwide search for
the six quarks that make up pro-
ns and neutrons inside atoms.
"We have not yet observed
nough examples of top quark
production to establish the parti
cle's existence beyond question,”
laid Melvyn Shochet, a University
|of Chicago physicist involved in
fthe research.
I "Nevertheless, this new evi-
“If it had not been discovered ... I think the
whole picture of the universe would have col
lapsed.’
Michael Riordan, physicist at the Stanford
Linear Accelerator Center in California
dence points strongly to the exis
tence of the sixth and final quark
that we have been seeking for so
long.”
The Fermilab team continues to
search for more evidence to verify
the top quark’s existence, said Judy
Jackson, a spokeswoman for Fer
milab.
Without the top quark, the
Standard Model would collapse,
forcing scientists to rethink three
decades of research.
Five quarks had already been
discovered - the last in 197 7 at
Fermilab. Since they’re believed to
come in pairs, scientists believed a
sixth, or top quark, must exist.
Its elusiveness “has been a glar
ing hole,” said Alan Weinstein, a
physicist at California Institute of
Technology. He called Fermilab’s
efforts “a beautiful and important
discovery.”
Researchers at Fermilab discov
ered the last quark has been hard
to find because of its tremendous
mass - 35 times heavier than the
fifth quark.
“It’s the most massive funda
mental particle that we know of,”
Weinstein said.
The more massive a subatomic
particle, the more energy is re-
a uired to produce it, and the more
ifficult it is to find.
Despite its mass, the top quark
is smaller than a trillionth of the
thickness of a human hair, and it
exists for only a trillionth of a tril
lionth of a second, Riordan said in
a telephone interview.
Scientists didn’t actually see it,
but found evidence that it exists
from patterns created by experi
ments in Fermilab’s underground
Tevatron supercollider.
In the four-mile circular collid
er, they used an electronic field to
accelerate larger particles at nearly
the speed of light, then made them
colliae.
“Because you have so much en
ergy,” the collision creates a quark
heavier than the original particles,
Jackson said.
“It’s as if two tennis balls collid
ed and a bowling ball flew out,”
the spokeswoman said.
The first signs of the top quark
came last June, but it has taken
months to analyze and test the re^
suits, Jackson said.
Though the discovery is reas
suring to physicists, it raises an
other, more mysterious question,
Riordan said.
“Why is this thinp so colossally
heavy? It’s like you re building a
home of bricks and every sixth one
is made out of lead,” he said.
“It must have some intimate re
lationship with whatever the ori
gin of mass is, but we have no idea
why the top quark is so massive,”
Weinstein said.
The six quarks are named “up”
and “down,” “charm” and
“strange” and “top” and “bot
tom.” A physicist took the word
“quark” from a line in James
Joyce’s "Finnegans Wake”: "Three
quarks for Muster Mark.”
UDENT
GOIVEIRNMENT
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UNIVERSITY COMMITTEES FOR 1994-95
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IN ’SA-’SS III
ourners fall silent as Nixon’s hearse arrives
The Associated Press
""itK '*^'1
Special to The Battak
s from the pool sidt
sday afternoon. He
e and Wesley wlio
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Former President
I feon flew home Tuesday for the last time.
Nixon’s flag-draped casket was flown from
'Jew York, where he died Friday, to El Toro Ma
ine Corps Air Station, and was taken 20 miles by
notorcade to Yorba Linda, his birthplace and site
T his burial Wednesday.
His coffin was carried by the same blue and
white plane that flew the 37 th president to Cali
fornia after he resigned as president nearly two
decades ago.
Hundreds of mourners fell silent as the hearse
pulled up to the Richard Nixon Library & Birth
place in a thunderstorm. The body was to lie in
, state in the library lobby until the funeral, which
es in mail ■will be attended by every president to serve since
Nixon.
First in line for the viewing was Bill Anderson,
47, of Barstow, who left home at 6 a.m. “to show
rvice center in Ae [] 0nor to q ie president” and to see his 21 -year-
illy after receiving®™
t week.
said Tuesday that®
;endiary devices’if
line.
IRS equipment,
mail and have te®
g taken to handle t
id.
erous the devices wt
Ve do not believe tl®
age.”
:ed from Kansas.
old son, Albert, a member of the military honor
guard.
“For any man to give his whole life for this
country, I would have to have a strong feeling for
him,” Anderson said.
“I’m here to pay my respects to my comman
der in chief,” said Bernice L. Collins, an 81 -year-
old former Nixon campaign worker who sat in a
wheelchair nearby.
Nixon’s daughters, Tricia Cox and Julie Eisen
hower, their husbands and four children accom
panied the casket on the flight from Stewart Air
National Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y.
The Boeing 707 touched down about 12:30
p.m.
The final journey began at the Vander Plaat Fu
neral Home in Wyckoff, N.J., where Nixon’s
body was brought after his death in a New York
hospital Friday night. The former president was
laid out in a blue suit, said William Brock, one of
the funeral home owners.
When the casket arrived at Stewart, howitzers
boomed a 21 -gun salute and a band played “Hail
to the Chief” during a 20-minute ceremony. A
Marine honor guard stood at attention, holding a
gun as a tear streamed down his cheek.
In California, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Band played “Ruffles and Flourishes,” “Hail to
the Chief” and “America the Beautiful” as four
howitzer cannon gave another 21 -gun salute.
Nixon did not want a Washington funeral,
and his family declined to have his body lie in
state in the Capitol Rotunda. On Thursday, mem
bers of Congress marked his death in the Rotunda
anyway placing a large wreath at its center, where
the coffin would have been.
Nixon will be buried next to his wife, Pat, just
a few steps from the tiny clapboard farmhouse
where he was born 8 1 years ago. Mrs. Nixon
died of cancer in June.
President Clinton will deliver a eulogy, as will
Sen. Robert Dole, former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger and Gov. Pete Wilson. The Rev. Billy
Graham, a longtime Nixon friend, will preside.
DIPLOMAS
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404 University E. 693-6894
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