In 1996 Discover Magazine reported on the discovery by physicists of a new fundamental particle of matter. This particle, dubbed the Bigon, could only be coaxed into existence for mere millionths of a second, but amazingly, when it did materialize it was the size of a bowling ball. Physicist Albert Manque and his colleagues accidentally found the particle when a computer connected to one of their vacuum-tube experiments exploded. Video analysis of the explosion revealed the Bigon hovering over the computer for a fraction of a second. Manque theorized that the Bigon might be responsible for a host of other unexplained phenomena such as ball lightning, sinking souffles, and spontaneous human combustion. Discover received huge amounts of mail in response to the story.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.

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Well, you'll just have to let Bigons be bigons!
Posted by apoch003  in  Portland, Oregon  on  Mon Nov 15, 2004  at  08:44 AM

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Yes, and that Bigon certainly was a Big One... ^_^
Posted by Kiyakotari  on  Mon Nov 22, 2004  at  06:08 AM

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I remember reading this in the same article as the Hotheaded Naked Mole rats and being completely taken by the joke (I was 14).

I think the article also said that a large quantity of bigons could have been responsible for dinosaur extinction (though I thought that was an odd hypothesis). They even had a picture of the large sphere breaking the computer.
Posted by Cbake  on  Wed Mar 30, 2005  at  09:36 AM

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I worked at Discover at the time. This was another brainchild of my hilarious colleague Tim's. I remember the art department rolling around the floor in stitches over the illustration. The name "Albert Manque" was meant to imply that the guy was no Einstein. Tim used to practice a form of Chinese martial arts that involved holding a bowling ball with your fingertips. If you passed his office around lunchtime, you would often see him walking in slow, meditative circles, carrying his bowling ball. We often teased him about using bigons in his martial-arts practice after this story ran.
Posted by Not as funny as Tim  on  Tue Apr 05, 2005  at  06:22 AM

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i knew it !
bigons did it

thats why i cant hit the last bowling pin a bigon apears right at the crittical time !

now on to look for something explaining why
the battlefield 1942 pirates mod server is an
###hole
Posted by european  in  europe ( shees) ok iam dutch  on  Fri Jun 17, 2005  at  03:13 AM

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My high school physics teacher told me a bit about this (very sketchy details... just that a chance explosion of a computer monitor revealed a bowling-ball sized particle). I think my teacher may have believed it (and had not been playing along), because she didn't have many details and never revealed it as a joke. But then, she had a wicked sense of humour and would be the kind of person to never reveal a prank.

Ever since, I've been doing a web search every couple of years or so to see if I can find a reference to this. I am so relieved to finally have an answer.
Posted by Chris  on  Fri Oct 28, 2005  at  05:28 PM

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I was taking Physics in High School when that article came out. I totally fell for the story, and promptly brought it to school to show my teacher. He was very gentle when he explained it was a hoax, but I still felt pretty stupid.
Posted by Lexi  in  NY, NY  on  Sun Apr 01, 2007  at  04:53 PM

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sweet hoax!
Posted by stringbassgirl  in  this galaxy, the world  on  Mon Apr 02, 2007  at  02:43 PM

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I believed this one when I was young. the picture was great
.
Posted by Messyhair  in  sf  on  Sat Dec 29, 2007  at  10:13 PM

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Yeah, young and naive, I fell for this one too back in the day. Now for the rest of my life any time I read about the things observed in particle accelerators I'll always think, "Hey, I wonder if they've observed any Bigons..."
Posted by Mike  in  California  on  Thu Jan 03, 2008  at  04:12 PM

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That's not a hoax after all. I think I've seen this thing somewhere....oh wait...it's the kamehame-ha! by Goku in Dragonball Z!

Mike
Sityodtong Muay Thai
Posted by Mike  in  USA  on  Sat Feb 09, 2008  at  12:49 PM

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I wonder if a Whovian thought that one up. There was an android character named Bigon in a Doctor Who episode named Four to Doomsday. Peter Davison was the Doctor.
Posted by miseryplex  in  USA  on  Tue Apr 01, 2008  at  12:35 AM

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