Artwork by Sandbox Studio, Chicago

How to wrangle a particle

01/07/16

By Katie Elyce Jones

Learn some particle accelerator basics from a Fermilab accelerator operator.

How do you keep a particle inside of an accelerator? Fermilab accelerator operator Cindy Joe explains.

Have a burning question about particle physics? Let us know via email or Twitter (using the hashtag #asksymmetry). We might answer you in a future video!

popular on symmetry

12/09/25

Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

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.

07/28/16

The deconstructed Standard Model equation

The Standard Model is far more than elementary particles arranged in a table.

An illustration featuring a model of the solar system

11/07/23

Can we fit the universe in a box?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a computer answer all of the biggest questions in the universe?

Woman coming out of sun shaped archway walking down runway in roller skates

01/24/17

Five extreme facts about neutron stars

Neutron stars have earned their share of superlatives since their discovery in 1967.

Weird

The universe is weird.

10/01/05

Snowmass 2005: Toward an International Linear Collider

Nearly 700 physicists from around the world met in Snowmass, Colorado, to advance plans to create an International Linear Collider, a next generation machine that would answer the most fundamental

10/01/05

Asymmetric insight

Like climbers assessing a new route before making the ascent, physicists have been looking for footholds on a vertiginous new terrain.

10/01/05

War and peace

Public participation is a critical issue for planners of the proposed International Linear Collider.

10/01/05

CP violation

CP is violated if there is a difference between the ways nature treats matter and antimatter.

10/01/05

Snowmass 2005

In August 2005 nearly seven hundred physicists and engineers from around the world traveled to the small Rocky Mountain town of Snowmass, Colorado, to advance the planning and design of the propose

09/01/05

J/Ψ particle

Burton Richter’s group double-checked what they thought was a minor statistical inconsistency in their data.

09/01/05

Superconductors

Superconductors transmit electricity without wastefully producing heat.

View full archive