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Science 10 September 1999:
Vol. 285. no. 5434, pp. 1646 - 1647
DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5434.1646
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News of the Week

QUANTUM CONDENSATES:
After Bosons, Physicists Tame the Rest of the Particle Kingdom

David Voss

All the particles of nature fall into one of two categories, bosons and fermions, and in 1995, physicists chilled bosons to such a low temperature that they became locked into a single quantum state (Science, 14 July 1995, pp. 152, 182, and 198). Now on page 1703, physicists report coaxing a vapor of reluctant fermions into a low-temperature quantum state of its own. With luck, it will be the first step toward an even stranger state of matter--a collection of fermions so cold that they seek each other out as partners, forming pairs that resemble the pairs of particles that are key to superconductors and superfluids.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)