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.
When physicists organized the first Particles and Nuclei International Conference in 1963, nobody thought that the acronym PANIC could cause trouble in getting the word out about the meeting. That was before the now-common use of email.
In November, the Pierre Auger Observatory outside Malargüe, Argentina, celebrates its scientific launch. The observatory will record high-energy cosmic-ray showers with ground-based water tank detectors and air-shower cameras.
Artist Robert Lang has folded intricate paper sculptures from flat sheets that, in some cases, started out over nine feet long. He uses the same method many of us used to make cranes and party hats in elementary schoola series of precise folds. But Langs designs are far more complex.
In today's particle physics experiments, it takes a fraction of a second for data recorded by detectors to be transferred to a data storage facility. Soon thereafter, collaboration members from around the world have access to the data via the Internet.
Today's cutting-edge scientific projects are larger, more complex, and more expensive than ever. Grid computing provides the resources that allow researchers to share knowledge, data, and computer processing power across boundaries.
Particle physics has been getting its due in the theater world with the recent plays Copenhagen and QED, which celebrate the lives and work of famous physicists. Now the field is being paid the highest musical and artistic compliment.