latest news

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.

12/01/07

Across the ocean, yet close to home

Among the 10,000 people from around the world who are working on the Large Hadron Collider, 1000 hail from universities and national labs in the United States.

12/01/07

Spartan software

Every time Fermilab scientist Tom Schwarz starts up SpartyJet, he inwardly grimaces. The computer program works well. It does a fine job of finding and recording jets—sprays of subatomic particles that emerge from collisions involving protons.

12/01/07

Entering Higgs habitat

A powerful new collider will allow scientists to explore the territory where the long-sought Higgs particle—maybe even a whole family of them—resides.

12/01/07

Connecting with Africa

ATLAS, a particle physics experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, boasts 2000-plus members from 35 countries. But on a map showing where those members come from, one continent is almost mark-free: Africa.

Simulation showing a spray of particles created in a particle collision

12/01/07

Protecting the LHC from itself

Scientists at CERN have crafted the world’s most sophisticated machine protection system to save the LHC from itself.

12/01/07

The LHC by mail

Each year the European laboratory CERN welcomes tens of thousands of visitors. Now the lab can visit them back.

11/01/07

Dark energy

In the fall of 1997, I was leading the calibration and analysis of data gathered by the High-z Supernova Search Team, one of two teams of scientists the other was the Supernova Cosmology Projecttrying to determine the fate of our universe: Will it expand forever, or will it halt and contract, r

11/01/07

Free for all

The next big experiment in particle physics won’t need an accelerator, detector, or other big machine. It doesn’t even involve subatomic particles—unless you count the electrons that flow through electronic circuits, carrying bits of information from one human brain to the next.

View full archive