In physics experiments, particles of
known spin were smashed together in order to produce other particles.
Since physicists knew the total spin of the particles going into the
collision, they used conservation of angular momentum to determine the
spin of the particles produced. They found that the spin of all particles
were either integer values of  (0, 1, 2, 3,...) or half integer values of (1/2, 3/2, 5/2,...).
Most of the newly discovered particles
were part of a common class of particles called hadrons.
Hadrons were classified as either mesons, with integer
values of spin, or baryons, with half-integer values of
spin. |
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