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Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

12/09/25

Sarah Charley

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.

Illustration in 8-bit style showing a scientist playing a video game in a darkened room

03/28/19

Why LHC physics is like ‘Starcraft’

Video games and physics have more in common than you might think.

Illustration depicting the many paths for a PhD recipient

03/26/19

To PhD or not to PhD

Respondents to Symmetry’s survey about what it’s like to earn a PhD in particle physics or astrophysics offer their views of the experience.

03/19/19

‘Entangle’ exhibit fuels imagination with physics

A Swedish university tapped the founding director of CERN’s artist-in-residence program to curate a new art exhibit inspired by physics.

An artist's concept of plasma acceleration

03/14/19

The potential of plasma wakefield acceleration

Scientists around the world are testing ways to further boost the power of particle accelerators while drastically shrinking their size.

An illustration of Sibusiso Biyela with her laptop

03/12/19

Decolonizing science through sci comm

Science writer Sibusiso Biyela aims to bring science back to South Africa’s Zulu communities.

03/05/19

A tiny new experiment at the LHC

The story of the latest experiment approved for installation at the Large Hadron Collider starts with a theorist and a question about dark matter.

02/26/19

10 words that mean something different to physicists

Some of this science sounds awfully familiar.

Overhead view of artists kneeling on a blue surface and creating an image of bubble chamber tracks with white sand

02/22/19

The bubble chamber sand mandala

One sprinkle of sand at a time, two artists recreated the moment a particle passed through a detector 30 years earlier.

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