... Synchrotron(CERN)SSC Superconducting Super ColliderProject BUILDING BLOCKS OF MATTERxxxCOMMON ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS BUILDING BLOCKS OFMATTERBBoM-halfttl.4/16/03 5/8/03 5:47 PM Page iSSRL ... the electron, to accountfor, physicists knew that a new era was under way.The idea of basic building blocks of matter is atleast 2,600 years old. In the sixth century B.C.E.Thales proposed ... work of eighteenth- andnineteenth-century chemists, brought atoms to thefore as the basic building blocks of matter. By theearly years of the nineteenth century, quantitativemeasurements had...