Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

Tied with reed

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

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.

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.

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.

Early linacs

The 1940s saw the origins of linear electron accelerators that directly led to the 2-mile-long accelerator at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. SLAC archivist Jean Deken presents a pictorial history of early linear accelerator development at Stanford University.

Debbie Harris: Balancing it all

Whether climbing trees with her eight-year-old son Isaac, trying to put a dress on her four-year-old daughter Sonia, or running tests on the MINOS neutrino beam line, Debbie Harris is a problem solver and her mind is always busy. "It's really hard to be a parent," she says.

Spectrum of discovery

The future of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center involves a broadening from traditional particle physics experiments to research from subatomic to cosmological scales.