PION FOUND IN BASEMENT OF SWAIN HALL WEST!

Relieved scientists end 50-year search for the missing particle.

April 4, 2003

Bloomington, Indiana -- A group of scientists have ended the search for an uncharged pion that was lost in the basement of Swain Hall West nearly 50 years ago.

Professor Andrew Bacher, one of the two spokesmen for the group, said that it was a real relief to finally know that the pion was in a secure location.

"It had been missing since the early 1950s, when a pair of graduate students accidentally left the lid to its container open.  The pion escaped, and they came back the next morning to find the container empty," Bacher said.

Everyone in the physics department -- professor, graduate student, and undergraduate alike -- immediately began the search for the pion through the narrow, dark, and twisted corridors of the basement and sub-basement of Swain Hall West.  Their search turned up empty.

"It can get quite terrifying down there," an unidentified student was reported as saying.

An uncharged pion is about the size of a golf ball, but it has properties like that of a rubber bouncy ball.  Pions move around by interacting with matter and then bouncing off.  They are generally considered harmless, but scientists wanted this pion back just to be certain. 

"Sometimes things get lost down in the basement of Swain West and never are found again.  I remember an old colleague of mine... he went down there one evening to check on an experiment.  No one has seen him since," Bacher said remorsefully.

In the early 1980s, after the search for the pion had been unsuccessful for more than 30 years, new information came to light that the pion had migrated to the IU Cyclotron Facility, several miles away on the north fringes of Bloomington.

Since then, the search had been focused mainly at the Cyclotron, even though no new information had come forth and the pion remained missing.

Then, last month, a faculty member was in the basement of Swain Hall West one morning when the pion bounced into his cup of coffee.  Apparently the pion was unable to bounce out of the liquid, and the faculty member took the cup of coffee and the pion to the administrative office.  The pion was promptly returned to its container, and the faculty member obtained another cup of coffee.

"Just think," says Bacher, "the whole time it was down there in the basement -- right under our noses!"

The pion currently resides in its container -- with the lid secure -- on the desk in Professor Bacher's office.  He welcomes all students and staff to come by to have a look at it during his posted office hours.

"We're just glad to have it back," he added.

On a related note, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) recently contacted Professor Bacher to urge him to release the pion back to its natural environment.

"It's just not fair to the pion to be caged up in a container in a tiny, dark office.  I think the pion made it clear 50 years ago that it wished to be free," a spokesperson for PETA announced.

Professor Bacher said that he tried to explain to the PETA spokesperson that the pion is a particle, not an animal.  "She just didn't seem to understand that an uncharged pion is not a living being," Bacher said.

PETA has scheduled a protest in favor of the release of the pion for next Wednesday at 5 P.M. outside Swain Hall West.