The familiar elements of the Periodic Table come in a number of forms, or isotopessome found only fleetingly in the most violent events, such as exploding stars.
Bluish lights flash on a grassy field, like giant fireflies angling for mates—sometimes a single flash, sometimes a ripple of light moving fast, as if suitors have given chase. Then all 16 lights flash at once, and the whole field glows.
Particle physics joins forces with other fields to look at two important factors shaping weather: temperatures high in the atmosphere and the dampness of the dirt beneath our feet.
There are many ways to deliver a clever play on words: deliberately with a nudge, coyly with a wink, or tossed nonchalantly into a conversation to trigger a delayed laugh—or a groan.
Jorge Cham's popular comic strip about the lives of hapless grad students takes him to the Large Hadron Collider—and launches a series of comics that explains the science with remarkable clarity.
If someone had told me when I was in high school that one day I would meet Stephen Hawking and have a meeting at NASA, I never could've guessed the trajectory I'd follow to get there. I would've assumed I had become a physicist.