[net.physics] Quarks and things

BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA (11/01/83)

From:  William "Chops" Westfield <BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA>

Excerpt from a newswire article:

	Metals conduct electricity because they unleash and
    transfer their electrons - tiny subatomic particles that
    carry what had long been considered an indivisible unit of
    nature, the negative electric charge. But physicists believe
    that conductivity in plastics may well be evidence of a
    fractional charge. Dr. Robert Schrieffer, a Nobel laureate
    at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has
    described the work on conductive plastics as ''one of the
    hottest areas in modern physics.''

Is this true (if so, how so?), or are the reporters confused as
usual.

BillW
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