In order for the particles to stop so quickly within the emulsion, they would either have to have low energies, and thus be moving slowly, be extremely massive, and thus have high energy but still move slowly, or they were reacting with the emulsion itself and turning into other particles. The first possibility, that they were low-energy particles, did not seem likely given the physics of the accelerator. The second, that they were high mass, was contradicted by other measurements that suggested the particles had a charge of 14, like silicon, and would thus be very likely have a low mass. This left only the third possibility, that they were reacting with the emulsion itself. This was by no means uncommon, these reactions were used as an integral part of the detection process, but it was the speed that these reactions would have to take place that was odd. In order to produce such short tracks, the particles would have to be reacting much more quickly than ever seen before. The particles became known as "anomalons" due to their apparently anomalous reaction rates. If they were following the same basic rules as other matter, and interacting with the emulsion due to the strong force, their component of the strong force was about ten times the strength of known reactions.