When researchers reanalyzed the gold-standard data set of the early universe, they concluded that the cosmos must be “closed,” or curled up like a ball. Most others remain unconvinced.
Physicists have used advances in accelerator technology to develop a revolutionary machine-the Linac Coherent Light Source-for exploring the world on the smallest and fastest scales. Physicist Herman Winick describes the start of the LCLS and the spectacular results that are now rolling in.
This year, results from the Large Hadron Collider in Europe and the Tevatron in the United States will either prove or refute the existence of the Standard Model Higgs particle, a keystone in theorists’ proposed explanation for the origin of mass.
In 1991, physicists, computer scientists, and a librarian at what is now SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory opened the first website in North America.
Data from the world’s most powerful particle colliders should shed light on a 100-year-old astrophysics mystery, but even they cannot explain the perplexing properties of the universe’s most energetic particles. Are ultra-high-energy cosmic rays heavier than expected?
For those who live, breathe and laugh physics, one show entangles them all: The Big Bang Theory. To make the show's jokes timely and accurate, while sprinkling the sets with authentic scientific plots and posters, the show's writers depend on one physicist, David Saltzberg.
