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A first-person view of physics history

10/15/24

Michael Riordan has spent decades ruminating on the history of physics, including events he participated in himself.

07/02/12

FACET's accelerator revolution

A new test bed for accelerator technology has thrown open its doors, with the goals of making particle accelerators smaller, cheaper and more efficient—and of expanding their role in society.

07/01/12

An energetic life: From physics to efficiency

Physics training taught Brian Gerke how to figure out anything; now he’s applying his skills to energy-efficiency research, helping to set national standards.

07/01/12

Sigma

Sigma is a unit that describes how much a set of experimental data deviates from what’s expected.

Illustration of cupcakes with candles in them in space

06/01/12

Standard candle

Your birthday cake isn’t the only thing studded with lights.

06/01/12

Through a muon’s eyes

The muon—the short-lived cousin of the electron—could be the key to understanding relationships between other fundamental particles. And it holds a mystery all its own.

06/01/12

In Gran Sasso National Laboratory’s cavernous Hall B, beneath 1400 meters of rock, amongst huge detectors of neutrinos and dark matter, Italian actor Marco Paolini spoke. And more than one million people listened—and watched.

06/01/12

Shmoos of the Tevatron

Particles like the top quark weren’t the only characters to appear at Fermilab’s Tevatron. A physicist waxes nostalgic as scientists prepare to celebrate the accelerator’s contributions to science, technology and society at a symposium this month.

Illustration of twinkies moving in from outer space to Earth

05/01/12

The muon

Meet the Twinkie of particle physics: the muon.

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