Number 79 (Story #2), May 8, 1992 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein EUROPEAN PHYSICS has had a mixed success in the past decade. In condensed matter physics, Nobel prizes were won for the discovery of the quantum Hall effect, scanning tunneling microscopy, and high-temperature superconductivity, but there has been little important follow-up research in these areas. On the other hand, Grenoble, France will soon possess both the world's most powerful neutron source (Institute Laue-Langevin) and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), a source of hard x rays. In optical astronomy, the European Southern Observatory (ESO), at viewing sites in Chile, currently operates the 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) and in 1999 will unveil the Very Large Telescope (VLT), which will consist of four 8-m telescopes. In particle physics, CERN had most of the glory in the 1980's, what with the discovery of the W and Z bosons and later, toward the end of the decade, with the detailed measurement of the Z's mass at LEP. The HERA electron-proton collider in Hamburg, about to start experiments, and the proposed LHC proton-proton collider at CERN should make the 1990's interesting as well. (Science, 24 Apr. 1992.)