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Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

12/09/25

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.

04/01/06

Old giant hangs on

In biology, there is a loose rule of thumb that says the bigger an organism, the longer its life will be. If Fermilab's "Jolly Green Giant" is any indication, the rule may also apply to equipment in high-energy physics.

04/01/06

PEP-II interaction region

The Stanford Linear Accelerator pumps large amounts of energy into beams of electrons and positrons, sending them into the PEP-II storage ring where the particles can collide, revealing the secrets of fundamental particle processes.

04/01/06

Forget Albert

Quick, give an example of a first name of a physicist. Albert? Benjamin? Sure, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin are famous examples. But their first names are rather unusual.

04/01/06

Light sources

Light sources are accelerator-based machines used for research in fields from physics and chemistry to medicine and forensics.

04/01/06

Engineering feats

Sometimes it takes the most impressive equipment in the world to find the smallest, most easily overlooked particles in the universe. Fermilab's Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) project is a perfect example.

04/01/06

Signs of the times

Small whiteboards, hung on office doors, and ubiquitous bicycle helmets are signposts for the interactive, fluid nature of current endeavors at SLAC.

04/01/06

The Ziploc purse

During a recent trip to CERN on the Franco-Swiss border, my fellow International Linear Collider communicators and I gathered in the cafeteria for tea and coffee.

03/01/06

First Z at SLC

Roger Erickson was annoyed with all the calls to the main control room. People were eager for news of the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC). Was it running? Did they already observe the first Z particle, one of the carriers of the weak force?