There's a new scientific path in Princeton, New Jersey. Out of the loam of a vacant lot, a cluster of quasicrystals winks at some pink plasma. Tectonic plates shift, and neurons connect in a hippocampus curve of bamboo.
Cavities propel charged particles by transferring energy from electromagnetic waves to the particles, speeding them up. Superconducting cavities are made of material that can conduct electric currents without resistance at a very low temperature.
At a special meeting in Lisbon on July 14, the CERN Council unanimously adopted a 17-point European Strategy for Particle Physics, based on the premise that "Europe should maintain and strengthen its central position in particle physics."
Buried deep in the mountains of southern China, a new neutrino experiment would rely on a series of Chinese nuclear reactors and the brains of scientists from several countries.
A little after midnight, foreign voices and scents of dinner drift from the kitchen and down the halls of Dorm 1. Slavic dialogue stirs me from sleep and the aroma of cooked kielbasa sausage grabs my full attention.
Traditionally, the big five particle physics laboratories have been Fermilab and SLAC in the United States, CERN in Switzerland, DESY in Germany, and KEK in Japan. However, a changing world economy is bringing new players into the game.
In the early 1950s, Nobel-Laureates-to-be Norman Ramsey and Ed Purcell created cards of physical constants they found themselves using most frequently.
As a mechanical designer, Catherine Carr's first big undertaking at SLAC was a vacuum transporter system that let operators install electron cathodes, under vacuum, into the injector gun of the Stanford Linear Collider.
When researchers at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center realized their distance from Antarctica was a scientific inconvenience, they set about crafting an icy world of their own in Menlo Park, California.
"Since middle school, I've always had plans to get rich," says Michael Binger, a theoretical particle physicist at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. On August 11, 2006 his dream came true: Binger placed third at the World Series of Poker Championships in Las Vegas.
With his genius and his unmistakable appearance, Albert Einstein is an icon of both science and culture. Since his passing Einstein has inspired films, books, and even an opera, Einstein on the Beach. Not surprisingly, his popularity pays off handsomely.
In creating neutrinos for the MINOS experiment at Fermilab, the NuMI focusing horn delivers batches of protons using intense magnetic fields generated by 200,000-ampere pulses of electric current.
