The BigonAlbert Manque is a physicist of the old school. "Fifty years ago physicists could make experiments using material from the hardware store," says Manque, who works at the Centre de l'Etude des Choses Assez Minuscules in Paris. "I too prefer to work on a small scale." His penchant for tabletop research recently paid off. He and a colleague at the center have discovered an extraordinary new fundamental particle. Although the particle exists for just millionths of a second, it is the size of a bowling ball. Its existence, says Manque, could possibly explain a host of mysterious phenomena. Manque...