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.
Chalkboard discussions usually arise spontaneously, with one person explaining something to a small group standing nearby. Scratchings on the board tend to represent fragments of a conversation rather than a complete train of thought.
Affectionately known at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) as simply “The Blue Book,” The Stanford Two-Mile Accelerator has been a classic on site since the day it was published in 1968.
Mike Herlihy is active in the village of North Aurora, near Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and west of Chicago. Hes been a village trustee for six years, belongs to the Lions Club and served on an advisory committee to evaluate a proposed freeway.
Even in the company of a two-story nose-picking machine, human cupcakes, battling robots, and power-tool drag races, the giant Tesla coil stands out. Maybe it's the loud buzz and crackle of artificial lightning bolts, writhing like fiery serpents from the top of the thing.
Ken McMullen says he does not feel comfortable with categories. That's why when, given a choice between defining himself as a painter or a film-maker, he prefers to be called an artist instead.
Lead bricks and radiation gloves normally indicate a need to protect lab workers from radioactivity. For a laboratory at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, however, the opposite is true.