truncate

欧州合同原子核研究機関（ＣＥＲＮ）は物の質量の起源とされる第17番目の粒子「ヒッグス粒子」とみられる粒子を発見したと発表しました。大型加速器を使った実験ではその粒子が99.9999％以上の確率で存在するとの結果を得たそうです。最終的な確認がとられるとノーベル賞でしょうね。

(CNN) -- Scientists said Wednesday that they had discovered a new particle whose characteristics match those of the Higgs boson, the most sought-after particle in physics, which could help unlock some of the universe's deepest secrets.

"We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature," said Rolf Heuer, the director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which has been carrying out experiments in search of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest particle accelerator.

"The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe," Heuer said.

The particle has been so difficult to pin down that the physicist Leon Lederman reportedly wanted to call his book "The Goddamn Particle." But he truncated that epithet to "The God Particle," which may have helped elevate the particle's allure in popular culture.

But the teams stopped just shy of claiming outright discovery of the Higgs boson itself that is key to our understanding of why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/04/tech/physics-higgs-particle/index.html

新粒子はThe Goddamn Particle（「くそったれ粒子」）と呼びたいぐらいだったのですね。truncateは「樹木・などの先っちょを切断する」というところから、「カットする、縮める」という意味で使われる動詞です。

ちょうど今の時期、UGの住む住宅地では庭木の剪定をするところが多いのですが、truncateはその形通り、木のtrunkと同じ語源です。

世紀の大発見かもしれないのにこの程度のことしか書けないのが情けない。ちなみに物理をやっているうちの息子はかなり興奮しています。（UG）