Before it was established that matter burns by taking up oxygen, most chemists sought to explain combustion as the release of a mysterious substance, which they named “phlogiston.” Phlogiston theory was a conceptual breakthrough that helped chemists conduct experiments and share ideas, but when it came to pinning down the distinctive physical properties of phlogiston, […]
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Understanding More About “Nothing”
Measurements taken using Jefferson Lab’s CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) are telling us more about how matter is produced from “nothing,” that is, the vacuum. Using the CLAS in Hall B, Daniel S. Carman of Ohio University and nearly 150 members of the CLAS Collaboration studied the spin transfer from a polarized electron beam to […]