On supporting science journalism
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JULY 1957
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES — “In the strangeness theory, then, we have a means of classifying strange particles. The theory is consistent with the fundamental idea of four groups of particles and three types of reactions. At present our level of understanding is about that of Mendeleyev, who discovered only that certain regularities in the properties of the elements existed. What we aim for is the kind of understanding achieved by Pauli, whose exclusion principle showed why these regularities were there, and by the inventors of quantum mechanics, who made possible exact and detailed predictions about atomic systems. We should like to know the laws of motion of the particles; to predict, among other things, how they will interact when they collide and how these interactions will deflect one particle when it collides with another.—Murray Gell-Mann and E. P. Rosenbaum”
JULY 1907
MARTIANS — “If vegetation exists on Mars, as Prof. Lowell would have us believe, we are at once introduced to the probability of life on that planet. The existence of a flora is ground for suspecting a fauna. On Mars we find ourselves confronted in the canals and oases by precisely the appearance which the planet should show if it is an inhabited world. Dearth of water is the key to the character of the canals. The only available water on Mars is that coming from the semi-annual melting at the one or the other cap of snow. If there are intelligent beings on Mars, they must find some means of conducting the scant supply of water from the poles to the centers of populations.”