Theoretical physicists have proposed the existence of a new type of particle that doesn't fit into the conventional classifications of fermions and bosons. Their 'paraparticle', described in Nature on 8 January1, is not the first to be suggested, but the detailed mathematical model characterizing it could lead to experiments in which it is created using a quantum computer. The research also suggests that undiscovered elementary paraparticles might exist in nature. In a separate development published late last year in Science2, physicists experimentally demonstrated another kind of particle that is neither a boson nor a fermion ' an 'anyon' ' in a virtual one-dimensional universe for the first time. Anyons had previously been created only in 2D systems. Around the time when physicists began to understand the structure of atoms, a century ago, Austrian-born theorist Wolfgang Pauli suggested that no two electrons can occupy the same state ' and that if two electrons are pushed close to...
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