Muons: Emblems of discovery

Niobium

More than 500 tons of niobium would go into building the ILC. What's so great about niobium? Where does it come from? And is the Earth's supply going to run out?

Gluon discovery

This collision event recorded in 1979, provided the first evidence of the gluon, the carrier of the strong nuclear force.

Tied with reed

What do a 200-year-old thatched-roof house and a modern high-energy-physics laboratory have in common?

Global ILC efforts

Designing the International Linear Collider is a global enterprise. Physicists and accelerator experts from around the world are collaborating to design the approximately 25-mile-long machine.

Party poopers

Party poopers

Photo: Diana Rogers, SLAC
Busloads of new Stanford graduates and their families admired the field of golden grass on SLAC's eastern-most hill on a sunny Saturday in May. But their stunned tour guides looked in dismay as they sought 50 bright red balloons.

In their hands: the future of particle physics

Particle physics is at a critical time, and its future depends on how well scientists can make their case to a diverse National Academy of Sciences panel.

CLIC: The Compact Linear Collider

As the Global Design Effort for the proposed International Linear Collider starts to take shape, an international collaboration of scientists simultaneously works on an alternative linear collider technology that pushes physics and engineering to the edge.

International Linear Collider

The International Linear Collider is a proposed new electron-positron collider. Together with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, it would allow physicists to explore energy regions beyond the reach of today's accelerators.