Layoffs, budget cuts, a call for new vision in high-energy physics -- in her first months as director of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Persis Drell had a lot to navigate.
On the hit television show Numb3rs, where crimes are solved with math and science, cosmologist and theoretical physicist Larry Fleinhardt has lived in a monastery and flown into space searching for a sense of purpose. The next step takes him to Fermilab.
When particle accelerators gave birth to the powerful X-ray microscopes known as synchrotrons, they revolutionized the study of virtually every field of science.
In a boon for archaeology, particle physicists plan to probe ancient structures for tombs and other hidden chambers. The key to the technology is the muon, a cousin of the electron that rains harmlessly from the sky.
Amateur scientists make important contributions in a number of fields, from astronomy to ornithology. But very few have the background needed to succeed in high-energy physics.
In an empty urban lot beneath an overpass in Philadelphia, drummers beat a slow and steady rhythm. Two groups of dancers circle them in opposite directions.
Tesla coils always draw crowds, and the DucKon science fiction convention in Naperville, Illinois, was no exception. People gathered around the seven-foot-tall metal transformer tower and awaited its monotone crackle, purple sparks, and thrilling flashes of artificial lightning.