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Explain it in 60 Seconds: Lattice QCD

07/25/24

Lattice gauge theory, or lattice QCD, is a calculation method that helps scientists make predictions about the behavior of quarks at low energies.

10/01/09

Livingston plot

Physicists have been inventing new types of accelerators to propel charged particles to higher and higher energies for more than 80 years. Today, scientists estimate that more than 17,000 accelerators are in operation around the world—in industry, in hospitals, and at research institutions.

10/01/09

Sunscreen for an accelerator

A visitor wandering around SLAC last July would be forgiven for thinking the hot California sun had triggered a mirage. A parking lot at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource had transformed into a glistening lake.

10/01/09

Human ions collide for charity at BNL

The blue team rounded the bend first—sweaty, jovial, and headed toward the halfway point of the 2.4-mile path circling Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Suddenly, from the other direction, the yellow team emerged.

10/01/09

LabFest

In August, robots, mummies, and giant jellyfish took over Chicago's Millennium Park. Fortunately, the invasion was peaceful—just part of the fun at the latest LabFest, a kind of pumped-up, hands-on outdoor science fair aimed to engage Chicagoans in the excitement of science.

10/01/09

Grad students follow the data

Worried about getting the experimental data they need to finish their PhDs, about two dozen graduate students have left the long-delayed Large Hadron Collider for experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron. Most of them say they won't be gone for long.

10/01/09

Ski champion's wish comes true at CERN

She could take her pick of extreme adventures—rock climbing, skydiving, trekking through some exotic wilderness. The Swiss TV show Sportpanorama gave Dominique Gisin, winner of two International Ski Federation World Cup downhill victories in 2009, the chance to do anything she'd like.

10/01/09

Cleaner living through electrons

Studies show that blasts of electrons from a particle accelerator are an effective way to clean up dirty water, nasty sewage sludge, and polluted gases from smokestacks. Now researchers need to make the technology more compact and reliable.