Production and Decay of Strange Particles

List of The Outer Limits episodes

"Production and Decay of Strange Particles" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 20 April 1964, during the first season.

The plot involves workers at a nuclear research plant wearing radiation suits, who are taken over by some odd glowing substance that fills their suits and causes them to act as puppets of the force inside.

Mentioned in the episode are many modern physics concepts such as neutrinos, antimatter, quasi-stellar objects (at that time just discovered and perhaps mentioned here in TV fiction for the first time) and subatomic particles with the property of "strangeness" (a perhaps unfortunately named quantum property of matter which had been chosen a few years before by physicists, despite objection at the time that it was no more "strange" or odd than any other property of subatomic particles). The episode name is close to that of an actual Physical Review paper of 1956, titled "Cloud-Chamber Study of the Production and Decay of Strange Particles."

Read more about Production And Decay Of Strange Particles:  Opening Narration, Plot, Closing Narration, Cast

Famous quotes containing the words production, decay, strange and/or particles:

    Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
    W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

    But I must needs take my petulance, contrasting it with my accustomed morning hopefulness, as a sign of the ageing of appetite, of a decay in the very capacity of enjoyment. We need some imaginative stimulus, some not impossible ideal which may shape vague hope, and transform it into effective desire, to carry us year after year, without disgust, through the routine- work which is so large a part of life.
    Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    By some might be said of me that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange flowers, and have put nothing of mine unto it but the thread to bind them.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    O my countrymen!—be nice;Mbe cautious of your language;—and never, O! never let it be forgotten upon what small particles your eloquence and your fame depend.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)