Skip to main content

latest news

Muons: Emblems of discovery

01/13/26

Once a surprise to physicists, these particles are useful tools inside and outside the realm of particle physics. 

08/01/08

A bumper crop of physics plates

In our October/November issue, we asked readers to share stories and photographs of physics-related license plates. Here are the responses.

08/01/08

COUPP bubble chamber

Donald Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley, won a Nobel Prize for inventing the bubble chamber in 1952 as a way of detecting subatomic particles. Now a University of Chicago professor, Juan Collar, is leading the charge to make the bubble chamber cool and cutting-edge again.

04/01/08

Nuclear force

On November 1, 1934, Hideki Yukawa began to write the first draft of an article that would earn him the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics.

04/01/08

A yen for dough like mom made

Many high-energy physics laboratories have athletic clubs, music clubs, or chess clubs, but a bread-tasting club? Only in Japan. And only at Koo Energy Ken, KEK, outside of Tsukuba.

04/01/08

Secrets of the pyramids

In a boon for archaeology, particle physicists plan to probe ancient structures for tombs and other hidden chambers. The key to the technology is the muon, a cousin of the electron that rains harmlessly from the sky.

04/01/08

Geek cruise

For most people, a Caribbean cruise is an opportunity for sun-splashed daydreaming, guiltless beach reading, and lackadaisical dips in warm, shimmering waters—in other words, complete mental repose.