07 May 2020: Galileo and the science deniers, and physicists probe the mysterious pion
Nature Podcast
The Long Lived Pyonic Helium Atom
In the 1960s, people studied Pions using devices called bubble chambers. These were big tanks filled with liquid helium that was almost boiling. A scientist named George Condo of Tennessee University in 1964 devised a theory which said maybe there is this long lived Pyonic Helium atom being produced inside this chamber. Presumably the atom was previously produced by, for example, accident in previous experiments. The smoking gun proof would be to carry out what's called optical spectroscopy. Each atom that exists in nature has several characteristic atomic frequencies. That means the atoms can absorb or emit light of certain wavelengths. But this new Pyonic helium atom's lifetime is so incredibly short that it doesn't live long enough
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