latest news

05/16/19

Europe’s path forward

Physicists meet this week in Granada, Spain, to update the European Strategy for Particle Physics.

View full archive

Muons: Emblems of discovery

01/13/26

Diana Kwon

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

04/01/08

From atom smashers to X-ray movies

When particle accelerators gave birth to the powerful X-ray microscopes known as synchrotrons, they revolutionized the study of virtually every field of science.

02/01/08

In August 1982, Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister of the United Kingdom, paid a private visit to the European laboratory CERN. On her arrival she told Director General Herwig Schopper that she wanted to be treated as a fellow scientist.

02/01/08

Dating a saint

Two towns in Italy lay claim to relics from St. Francis of Assisi–pieces of clothing and an embroidered cushion from his deathbed.

02/01/08

W boson

The W boson is a charged force-carrying particle that transmits the weak force.

02/01/08

Biking the snow away

After seeing a documentary on Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic expedition, in which men ate shoe leather to survive in bone-chilling temperatures, David Peterson felt kind of silly about letting snow stop his bicycle ride to work.

02/01/08

Czech kimono challenge

Tokio Ohska had an opera to direct. As always, there were lighting, scenery, and music issues to contend with. But finding costumes to fit a cast of Europeans? That was a new challenge.

02/01/08

Short cuts for newcomers at the LHC

When Sal Rappoccio, a postdoctoral researcher from Johns Hopkins University, joined the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment in mid-2007, he did what any newcomer would do. He tried to start his analysis. It did not go well.

02/01/08

Chateau Neuf du PEP

No one is able to claim credit for the ancient wooden sign that hangs on the porch of the old Positron Electron Project buildings at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

View full archive