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12/03/17

A winning map

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

Muons: Emblems of discovery

01/13/26

Once a surprise to physicists, these particles are useful tools inside and outside the realm of particle physics. 

04/01/05

Neutrons for cancer treatment

In 1967, Don Young was among a handful of physicists working to turn a dream into the research institution that would become Fermilab. His first job found him in charge of building the linear accelerator—and then 30 years later, the Linac would help save his life.

04/01/05

Fermilab's "CMS branch office"

The CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) detector at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, and the new CMS offices at Fermilab are separated only by the amount of time it takes light to travel between the two places.

04/01/05

Benvenuto

Mario Calvetti of the University of Florence has been named the new director of Frascati National Laboratories by Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), marking a return to the origins of his scientific career.

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

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

What's in a name?

I have heard conflicting reports as to who decided to call one of the most spectacular intellectual innovations of human history "the Standard Model," physicists' best construct for explaining the range and behavior of elementary particles that make up the universe as we know it.

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.