latest news

08/28/18

New accelerator research program at Fermilab sees first beam

IOTA, the new test accelerator, gives researchers rich and varied opportunities to dive deep into the physics of particle beams.

08/28/18

LHC scientists detect most favored Higgs decay

Scientists now know the fate of the vast majority of all Higgs bosons produced in the LHC.

08/27/18

Voting open for 2018 Global Physics Photowalk

Help choose the winning images in this international science photography competition.

View full archive

Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

12/09/25

Sarah Charley

In 2023, the ALICE experiment was ready for their best year yet, until a mysterious signal threatened everything. As the LHC wraps up its 2025 lead-ion run, physicists recall how they worked together to solve the puzzle.

07/01/06

Battling the clouds

Clouds of electrons could block the view of new discoveries at the proposed ILC, a multi-billion-dollar particle collider. Eliminating those clouds is critical to the prspects for the machine's success.

Illustration of a man writing on a chalkboard

07/01/06

Elementary particle physics

Physics has demonstrated that the everyday phenomena we experience are governed by universal principles applying at time and distance scales far beyond normal human experience.

07/01/06

SLAC's water cycle

Along the Loop Road at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the roar of falling water and a refreshing mist filled the air after six solid weeks of California rain. But the water cascading down the inside of Campus Cooling Tower 101, and landing in a frothy pool, is hardly scenic.

07/01/06

A magnus force on the mound

Major league pitcher Jeff Francis brings an educated insight to the physics of baseball.

07/01/06

From placemat to prodigy

Over a half-eaten burrito or a bowl of spaghetti, Sam Ehrenstein ponders the unanswered questions of fundamental physics. Yet Sam is no experimental physicist or postdoc brooding over his data. Not yet, anyway.

07/01/06

Ellis Paul: Did Galileo pray?

The sighting of Jupiter's moons by Galileo Galilei resonates through science and history. Using a handmade telescope in January 1610, Galileo confirmed the Copernican theory that the planets moved around the sun; the Earth was not the center of the solar system.

07/01/06

A top gradient for cleanliness

After undergoing a buffered chemical polishing (BCP) treatment at Cornell University, the first US-processed and tested International Linear Collider superconducting cavity achieved a milestone accelerating gradient of 26 MV/m (megavolts per meter)–surpassing the first gradient goal (25 MV/m).

07/01/06

Spallation Neutron Source

Neutron scattering research has improved the quality of many everyday items: Shatter-proof windshields, credit cards, pocket calculators, airplanes, compact discs, and magnetic storage tapes are just some examples.

View full archive