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12/03/17

A winning map

The Fundamental Physics Prize recognizes WMAP’s contributions to precision cosmology.

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.

04/01/05

What's in the box?

In January 2000, Tom Jordan had just finished up a conference in San Diego, where he had presented one of the new cosmic ray detectors to QuarkNet teachers.

04/01/05

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is currently being installed in a 27-kilometer ring buried deep below the countryside on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland. When its operation begins in 2007, the LHC will be the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.

04/01/05

Control room

Each of the world's particle accelerators has its own custom control room, a nerve center where every detail of accelerator operation is monitored.

04/01/05

3.4 degrees of John Ellis

How is John Ellis, physicist at CERN, similar to Rod Steiger, actor from such films as On the Waterfront and The Pawnbroker?

03/01/05

Top quark

Theorists predicted the existence of a sixth quark in the 1970s, and no one imagined that finding the particle would take another two decades.

03/01/05

Microchip

Custom designed microchips have become essential in processing signals from modern physics experiments that generate lots of data. This chip, the QIE9, designed by Fermilab engineers, is just one example of the many Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) used in such experiments.

03/01/05

The smoking mouse

Because particle physicists cannot directly see the objects they study, they rely on deduction and decay products to detect nature's tiny, ephemeral particles.