For birders, it all comes down to that moment. Focus your binoculars, steady your hands, and look, hard, until you find that glimpse of feathers, a spark of recognition. Do you see it?
Mark Hanhardt spent his childhood exploring caverns and watching his dad, who was a miner, come home from work covered in dust. Still, he had no interest in working underground.
For most scientists, membership in a Large Hadron Collider experiment is a ticket to research at a frontier of particle physics. For Hafeez Hoorani, it also marked his country’s first step toward building a tradition of experimental particle physics research.
Who would you drive 10½ hours to see? The Grateful Dead? The Dalai Lama? What about an old, friendly guy who reads a lot and is really good at physics?