Unstable nuclear particle

Usage examples of pion.

When a pion, this subatomic particle, decays it becomes an electron and a positron, and they must be in antiparallel spin states so as not to violate conservation of spin angular momentum.

Actually, that makes sense: neutrons decaying into protons and pions would transmute some of the calcium to scandium, the oxygen to fluorine, and the carbon to nitrogen.

And when a proton annihilates an antiproton, it produces a pi-zero meson one-third of the time, and a charged pion, a muon, and a neutrino two-thirds of the time, after which the pions and neutrons promptly break down to electrons and positrons, photons and neutrinos.

Actually, that makes sense: neutrons decaying into protons and pions would transmute some of the calcium to scandium, the oxygen to fluorine, and the carbon to nitrogen.

The electrons make gamma rays, and the nuclei make pions, all high energy stuff.

To read even an elementary guide to particle physics nowadays you must now find your way through lexical thickets such as this: “The charged pion and antipion decay respectively into a muon plus antineutrino and an antimuon plus neutrino with an average lifetime of 2.

The whole kit-and-caboodle of pions, mesons, gluinos, antineutrinos, that whole strange charm of quarkiness, may come to seem a very twentieth-century enthusiasm.

Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims, Which spongy April at thy hest betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns.

The compact fusion reactor buzzed gently, its beat-wave accelerators ramming a mixture of electrons and pions into a stream of lithium ions at just under the speed of light.