A joint Fermilab/SLAC publication

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11/12/20
Quanta

What is a particle?

It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality.

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ALICE with one door open

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.

Image of 2012 INSPIRE top cited papers: word cloud
05/12/13

The top 40 physics hits of 2012

The Higgs boson is a popular subject among the most-cited physics papers of 2012, but a particle simulation manual takes the top spot.

Photo of muon ring model
05/08/13

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Muon g-2 experiment kicks off this summer with the move of a 50-foot-wide ring-shaped cryostat from New York to Illinois.

Photo of Exploratorium at Pier 15
05/07/13

A knack for exploring

With a solid grounding in physics, Thomas Humphrey shares the fun of discovery at San Francisco’s Exploratorium.

Photo of Tim Berners-Lee
04/30/13

Free from the start

Since CERN released the World Wide Web without royalties 20 years ago, the technology has flourished.

Illustration of beach with surf board, life vest, and person surfing on large blue wave in background
04/23/13

Plasma acceleration

Like surfers on huge ocean waves, electrons can ride waves of plasma to very high energies.

Photo of Fabiola Gianotti
04/19/13

Q&A with Fabiola Gianotti, Higgs hunter

Symmetry sits down with Fabiola Gianotti, who recently finished an eventful four years as spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.

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