On October 19, 1991, at 6:50 p.m., Bjørn Wiik logged the first collisions in the new electron-proton particle collider at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg.
What is the universe made of? What are matter, energy, space, and time? How did we get here and where are we going? In particle physics, the classic place to look for answers is in giant accelerators where particles collide. But nature also provides a wealth of data.
Search for “BaBar” on YouTube.com, and you'll get a long list of links to a 1980s TV series based on an animated elephant. But a surprise is hidden among the cartoons—a six-minute film shot in the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's BaBar control room.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois has a challenge: how will it maintain its central role as a place where particle accelerators produce groundbreaking discoveries in physics?
Men and women wearing gaudy dresses, looking for customers under garish neon signs—this is a common sight in Kabuki-cho, Shinjuku, a famous entertainment and red-light district in Tokyo, Japan.
