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.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center librarian Lesley Wolf needed a creative idea for the next library display. Ten-year-old Connor Reed had lots of free time this summer and an extensive set of K'nex, the flexible equivalent of Lego.
Flags, arts and crafts from different nations, and a warm welcome transformed the DOE Brookhaven Site Office's Second Annual Unity Day into a celebration of people and cultures working together.
When physicists at Fermilab smash particles together, most of what comes out of the collisions is well understood. But every once in awhile strange things appear in the data—incidents popularly known as zoo events.
When exploring the mysteries of the universe, don't neglect the floorboards. Last December at Fermilab, repairs to the ceiling over the kitchen in the Aspen East users' center, targeting a joist that had distorted the floor of the dorm room above, produced some startling debris.
The young people who will build our future appear to be largely unaware of how attractive and rewarding careers in science can be. We should not be surprised. In many high schools, physics is an elective subject lasting just a year, not nearly enough time to ignite curiosity in hungry minds.
Pick a number: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 and so on and on and on and on . Get the picture?
Although initial results were encouraging, physicists searching for an exotic five-quark particle now think it probably doesn't exist. The debate over the pentaquark search shows how science moves forward.
The history of Louisiana is closely intertwined with tragedies. My father, who turns 90 this fall, vividly remembers the Great Flood of 1927. "You could take a boat from Monroe, Louisiana, to Jackson, Mississippi," he says, a trip of over 120 miles.
Physicists are dedicated to their work, but it often bleeds into their home and personal lives. Reading this issue of symmetry gives me a converse impression—just how human physicists are as they work.
At the CERN Scientific Policy Committee meeting held on June 18-19, 1979, the construction of LEP, the Large Electron-Positron collider, was on the agenda.
This August, one hundred and fifty postdocs and advanced graduate students from around the world will gather on the Illinois prairie to enhance their understanding of particle colliders at the CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School.
